FAQ for Plesk 12.5

General questions

  • Is Plesk GDPR compliant?

    Please read detailed article regarding Plesk GDPR compliance.

  • Does the Virtual Server license have to be installed on a virtualized environment?

    Yes, Virtual Server license only works on Virtual Server. Please check requirements for supported virtualization solutions before purchasing Virtual Server license. If Plesk cannot recognize the environment as virtualized, Virtual Server license won't work. Refer to Software requirements​

    for more details.
  • Where can I find Plesk 12.5 database schema?

    You can find it at Plesk's public github page. To view *.mwb file you will need to install MySQL Workbench .

  • What is “permanent ban” in fail2ban? I thought fail2ban could permanently ban offenders in Plesk 12.0?

    Permanent ban is a common web term meaning that offender is banned indefinitely by fail2ban (read this for more info). Older versions (0.8.x) of fail2ban shipped with Plesk 12.0 were able to permanently ban offenders, however, these bans were lost upon service restart due to a bug in fail2ban. This issue was fixed in a newer version of fail2ban (0.9.2), shipped with Plesk 12.5, so now fail2ban in Plesk offers a proper permanent ban that’s not lost between service restarts.

Upgrade, components and compatibility

  • I have a Plesk 12.0 with Customer and Business Manager (CBM). Can I upgrade to Plesk 12.5 and if I do, will CBM continue working?

    Yes, you can upgrade to Plesk 12.5 and CBM will continue working. CBM and Plesk integrate using Plesk XML-RPC API. Each version of Plesk supports multiple versions of API and provides wide range of backwards compatibility.

  • I have a Plesk 12.0 with Web Presence Builder (WPB). If I upgrade to Plesk 12.5, will it remove WPB from my server?

    Web Presence Builder will not be removed from the server. It will continue working and your customers will be able to edit and publish their websites as they did before the upgrade.

    In Plesk 12.5, Web Presence Builder becomes optional component. This means you can uninstall it from the server using Plesk Installer interface (Tools & Settings > Updates and Upgrades).

  • What is this "Phusion Passenger server" that is available for installation on Plesk for Linux?

    Phusion Passenger server allows running Ruby and Django web applications on a Plesk server. In Plesk 12.5 it is possible to install it using Plesk Installer. However, configuration and application deployment must be done manually, since Plesk does not provide any integration features yet. To learn more, check Plesk Dev Blog articles on running Ruby and Django web applications.

PHP management

  • Do you plan to add PHP7 support for Plesk 12.0?

    No, we do not plan adding PHP7 support for Plesk 12.0. Our customers are upgrading to Plesk 12.5 in increasing numbers, and since Plesk 12.5 offers full PHP7 support, we don't see the point of backporting PHP7 into 12.0.

    Note: Some web applications might be incompatible with PHP 7.

  • Does Plesk provide additional versions of PHP on all operating systems?

    Additional PHP versions are available for installation from Plesk Installer (Tools & Settings > Updates and Upgrades) only on the two latest supported versions of the OS. For example: CentOS 6 and CentOS 7, but not CentOS 5; Debian 7 and Debian 8, but not Debian 6.

  • Which PHP extensions can I manage on Tools & Settings > PHP Settings > PHP handler?

    If extension is defined in *.ini file in /opt/plesk/php/$version/etc/conf.d/ directory, you can enable or disable such extension from Plesk interface. However, if the extension is loaded using ""extension=" statement in the /opt/plesk/php/$version/etc/php.ini file, it will not show up in the list of extensions. In this case you will need to edit php.ini file to disable/enable such extension.

    Note: Since on Windows, all extensions defined within main php.ini file, "Extensions" tab for each handler is empty.

  • How Plesk implements multiple PHP-FPM handlers on Linux?

    Plesk starts multiple PHP-FPM daemon processes. Each uses separate configuration file, e.g. "/opt/plesk/php/5.6/etc/php-fpm.conf".

Database management

  • Can I fix MySQL InnoDB corruption problem with Check and Repair button?

    No. Check and repair button uses built-in methods to check and repair databases. InnoDB corruption is a very low-level problem and has to be fixed manually. See KB article #6586 for instructions on how to do it.

  • Can Plesk 12.5 manage databases that I created manually on the database server using CREATE DATABASE call?

    No. Plesk manages only those objects that were created through Plesk interface, command-line utilities, or API. This applies to databases, domains, FTP users, mailboxes etc.

  • Plesk 12.5 displays statistics for each database - the number of tables and the size of the database. Do I need to run Daily Maintenance Task to update these statistics?

    These statistics are fetched from the database server in real time. You don't need to wait for Daily Maintenance Task to update them.

  • Is it possible to use new database management functions (export, import, check and repair) from the command line?

    Since Plesk uses standard database tools (mysqldump, mysqlcheck etc.) in the backend, there are no dedicated CLI command to perform these functions. Please, use the standard database tools.

Task scheduler

  • I changed scheduler timezone on one of my subscriptions, but then I noticed it changed on my other subscriptions too. Why?

    Task Scheduler timezone is a property of a customer, not a property of a subscription. You can find the timezone definition in the Plesk configuration database in the table cl_param with parameter name scheduler_timezone_id.

  • Does Task Scheduler on Windows allow specifying date/time configuration using cron synax (e.g. "0 0,8,16 * * 7" for "at the beginning of the hour, every eight hours on Sunday")?

    Yes. Plesk 12.5 for Windows supports such date/time syntax. The resulting task in the Windows Task Scheduler will have multiple time triggers.

Repair

  • Does the repair utility has its own log file?

    No. You can redirect its output and error streams using standard shell redirect syntax: plesk repair all -n >repair.log 2>&1

  • Where does repair tool take the information on how to rebuild services' configuration and which problems to look for?

    Most of this information is hard-coded into the repair tool.

    On Linux, web configuration is built using templates. You can find more information in the documentation.

Dist-upgrade for Debian/Ubuntu

  • After dist-upgrade on my server, some of my customers are unable to login by SSH into their chrooted bash environments.

    Plesk's post-dist-uprade helper script updates only chrooted environment template (/var/www/vhosts/chroot/). Chrooted environments that were enabled before dist-upgrade are not updated. To make them work again, disable and re-enabled chrooted bash access for the subscription user.

  • In which cases Plesk Support provides assistance with dist-upgrade problems?

    Plesk Support will provide support only in cases when dist-upgrade helper scripts (from directory /usr/lib/plesk-9.0/) produce errors, or if Plesk does not work after dist-upgrade.

    Dist-upgrade procedure itself should be performed by experienced system administrator using instructions from OS vendor. Plesk Support will not provide support for any problems that occur during dist-upgrade, that are caused by misconfigurations or bugs in the OS packages.

Technical Reports

  • At what level report command collects the data (brief/middle/full)?

    The report utility is based on the collect info tools (KB articles #116503 and #116674). These tools used different level of report collection - brief, middle, or full. The report tool in Plesk 12.5 uses single level of reporting. Compared with established levels of collect info tools, it uses "middle" level with some additional debug information.

  • Does technical report includes the output of plesk repair -n command?

    Yes. It can be found in file collect/plesk/repair_status.txt for Linux or Informer\Plesk\Plesk-repair_status.txt for Windows.

Backups

  • I have one full backup and three incremental backups (A, B and C). What will happen if backup B is lost or corrupted?

    In such case, the backup C will be marked with yellow exclamation mark icon. Trying to restore such backup will produce a warning message which will inform you about the name of the missing incremental backups.

  • What will happen with incremental backups if I remove the full backup or one of the earlier incremental backups?

    Plesk removes all subsequent backups in the chain as well. This means that if you have a full backup and five incremental backups (A, B, C, D, and E) and you try to remove backup C, then backups D and E will be removed as well.

    Note: Plesk warns about this action when you try to remove the backup.

  • Does backup / restore of incremental backups affect the backup performance?

    The backup performance is improved, since there's less data to backup. The restore performance shows no noticable degradation.

  • Is there an option to not encrypt backups in the local storage?

    Not in the Plesk 12.5. It might be considered for the next version.