Provided Product Configurations

See Plesk configurations available on DigitalOcean.

Installing Plesk on DigitalOcean

1. Log in to an existing DigitalOcean account or create a new one.

2. Click Marketplace (under “DISCOVER” in the left navigation bar), type Plesk in the search bar, and then click the desired Plesk image: “Plesk” (which is Plesk on Ubuntu 22.04) or “Plesk (CentOS)” (which is Plesk on AlmaLinux 9).

   

3. Click Create Plesk (CentOS) Droplet/Create Plesk Droplet.

4. Choose one of the three plans and then choose a droplet paying attention to the amount of memory it comes with.

   You can choose one of the standard droplets paying attention to the amount of memory it comes with.

   The more websites you intend to host and the more traffic the hosted websites generate, the more memory you will need. Estimate the amount of memory your setup will require.

   If you want to try out Plesk on DigitalOcean, you can choose the smallest possible droplet (1 GB/1 vCPU under the Standard plan), which is sufficient for testing. If later you find yourself running out of resources, you can upgrade your droplet.

   

5. (Optional) Adding block storage is not necessary for Plesk to operate. You can skip this option and go to the next step.

6. Choose a datacenter region. If you plan to host small business websites, we recommend choosing the zone closest to their geographic location to reduce page load times for local visitors.

7. Additional options such as Private networking, IPv6, User data, and Monitoring are not necessary for most Plesk users. You can skip them and go to the next step.

8. Choose how to log in to your droplet.

   The easiest way is by using the root username and password. To log in this way, select Password and type your root password.

   Note: Keep your password safe. You will not see it again after the droplet is created.

   

   To log in to your droplet, you can also use SSH keys and SSH clients (for example, PuTTY, iTerm2, or Terminal). SSH keys are more secure than passwords but using them is slightly more complicated.

9. Choose how many Plesk instances you want to deploy and give each one a recognizable name.

   

10. (Optional) At this point, your Plesk instance is ready to be deployed. If you plan to deploy several instances, you may want to group them by:

    • Tagging them. You can manage every droplet with the same tag at once.
    • Selecting an existing project to which the droplet will belong.

    You can tag the droplet or select a project for it any time later after the droplet is created.

    

11. (Optional) Adding backups is not necessary for Plesk to operate. You can skip this option and go to the next step.

12. Click Create Droplet.

Your Plesk instance is being deployed. You can start working in Plesk once the deployment is finished.

Accessing Plesk for the First Time

The fastest way to log in to Plesk on DigitalOcean is by using the root username and password.

To log in to Plesk on DigitalOcean for the first time using a root password:

1. Locate your Plesk droplet and copy the IPv4 address next to it.

   

2. Open the https://<your-droplet-IPv4> link in your browser.

3. Ignore the “Your connection is not private” warning in your browser and proceed. It is safe to do so because the connection to your Plesk server is actually secure and encrypted with a self-signed SSL/TLS certificate.

4. On the Plesk login page, specify the root username, the root password you have created earlier, and then click Log in.

   

5. You will be redirected to the Plesk welcome screen. Provide your contact name and email address; read and accept the End-User License Agreement; set an administrator password.

   Note: To log in to Plesk next time, use that password and the admin username.

6. Click Enter Plesk to log in to Plesk.

   

To log in to Plesk on DigitalOcean for the first time using SSH keys:

1. Locate your Plesk droplet and copy the IPv4 address next to it.

   

2. Access the droplet command line via SSH. You can do so using your own SSH client, for example PuTTY on Windows or Terminal on Linux and macOS.

   PuTTY is a free popular SSH client for Windows. However, PuTTY does not work with the standard .pem format of SSH keys. If you use PuTTY, you will need to convert your SSH key to the PuTTY-specific format.

   Unlike Windows, Linux and macOS have the command-line Terminal application available by default. If you use Terminal, you will need to set the specific permissions for the key downloaded from DigitalOcean and place the key in the designated folder.

3. Run the following command to generate one-time login links:

   sudo plesk login
   

4. Plesk will generate two login links: one with the droplet hostname and the other one with the droplet IPv4 address. Open the link with the hostname in your browser (for example, https://eloquent-ishizaka.192-0-2-1.plesk.page/login?secret=KgG2POCJYtWoBc2EHoJzV6ThQpxkMjwuj7hv-9LP8LLbSc-J).

   Note: If the link with the hostname does not work for any reason, open the second link with the IP address (for example, https://192.0.2.1/login?secret=hlHH450sx%2FAlSJHj1VWJC2qKxK6gqVxtsMkYG6bf6wc%3D). In this case, you will see the “Your connection is not private” warning in your browser. Ignore the warning and proceed. It is safe to do so because the connection to your Plesk server is actually secure and encrypted with a self-signed SSL/TLS certificate.

5. You will be redirected to the Plesk welcome screen. Provide your contact name and email address; read and accept the End-User License Agreement; set an administrator password.

   Note: To log in to Plesk next time, use that password and the admin username.

6. Click Enter Plesk to log in to Plesk.

   

Congratulations! Your Plesk is completely ready to work and you can start adding your first domain. We also recommend that you make the following steps:

• Set up DNS hosting in DigitalOcean DNS.
• Assign a floating IP address to your droplet.

Setting up DNS Hosting

To put your websites online, choose how to set up your DNS hosting: internally in Plesk or externally by using a third-party DNS service, for example DigitalOcean DNS. We strongly recommend that you use DigitalOcean DNS because of the following advantages:

• No need to set up and maintain a secondary DNS server. DigitalOcean DNS offers free DNS hosting with three different name servers. This will reduce your Plesk server load and improve DNS hosting reliability.
• No need to configure DNS settings manually. DNS zones will be automatically synced between Plesk and DigitalOcean DNS by the DigitalOcean DNS extension (installed by default with Plesk on DigitalOcean).

Learn how to set up DNS hosting in DigitalOcean DNS.

You can set up DNS hosting before or after adding domains to Plesk. Either way, both new and existing domains will be automatically synced with DigitalOcean DNS.

If you want to use Plesk as a DNS server, refer to this topic.

If you want to use an external DNS service other than DigitalOcean DNS, you need to configure this external DNS service and also point the domain name to your Plesk server. To configure an external DNS service, refer to its documentation.

If you have already configured the external DNS service and it supports DomainConnect, use the Domain Connect extension, which is shipped with Plesk by default, to automatically point the domain name to your Plesk server.

Assigning Floating IP Addresses

Once a droplet is created, DigitalOcean automatically assigns a static public IP address to it. This IP address is enough for staging websites or for trying Plesk. You can reboot your droplet, switch it on and off, or rebuild it - the static IP address is lost only if you destroy the droplet.

However, for hosting production websites, we recommend that you  assign a floating IP address to your droplet and back up your droplet. Unlike static IP addresses, floating IP addresses can be moved between droplets.

If your droplet breaks down or if you accidentally destroy it, your website will be unavailable until you fix the droplet or create a new one. The easiest way to avoid downtime is to move the floating IP to the backup droplet. This will immediately bring your website back up with no need to change DNS settings.

Issues with Sending Email

If you cannot send email from Plesk, check if outbound connections on TCP port 25 are blocked. If they are, contact DigitalOcean support.