This section provides procedures for solving the most typical problems in Plesk for Linux. Most importantly, it contains information on what to do if you:

  • cannot access the Plesk login page
  • cannot log in to Plesk
  • forget the administrator’s password
  • encounter problems when operating Plesk in a Virtuozzo container

If your problem is not discussed in this chapter or if the proposed solution does not work, visit the Plesk Knowledge Base at http://kb.plesk.com/ or contact our technical support department.

Cannot Access Plesk

If you get the error messages “Unable to initialize session”, “Domain ID is undefined”, or “Client ID is undefined” when trying to access Plesk, it means that Plesk cannot create a session in $PRODUCT_ROOT_D/admin/sessions.

This may happen if there is not enough free disk space on the Plesk server.

To check if there is enough disk space, run the commands:

# df -h
# df -i

If disk space usage is at 100%, you should remove useless files or rotate log files in /var/log/. For more information on log rotation, see the section Log Rotation.

Cannot Log In to Plesk

If you get the error message “Access for administrator from address xx.xx.xx.xx is restricted in accordance with IP Access restriction policy currently applied.” when trying to access Plesk, it means that the Plesk IP access policy does not allow you to log in from your current IP.

To access Plesk from an IP address:

  1. Log in to the server via SSH.

Change the IP access policy in the psa database:

To find the current policy and its restricted and allowed IP addressess,run the following commands.

# mysql -uadmin -p`cat /etc/psa/.psa.shadow ` psa
mysql> select * from cp_access;
mysql> select * from misc where param='access_policy';

To clear the access policy settings:

Remove all records from the cp_access table:

mysql> delete from cp_access;

Set the policy to allow:

mysql> update misc set val="allow" where param='access_policy';

otherwise, you may get the following error message:

Unable to connect to database

login.php3: Unable to connect to database: Permission denied

ERROR 1045: Access denied for user: ‘admin@localhost’ (Using password: YES)

In this case, restart Plesk and try to log in again:

# /etc/init.d/psa restart

If this does not work, do the following:

Check that the /etc/psa/.psa.shadow file has valid permissions:

# ls -la /etc/psa/.psa.shadow

The right permissions and owner are -rw------- and psaadm respectively. If the current permissions are different from these, change them by running the commands:

# chown psaadm:psaadm /etc/psa/.psa.shadow
# chmod 600 /etc/psa/.psa.shadow

Check that mysql server is running and working properly:

# ps ax | grep mysql

The following output indicates that the mysql is running properly:

3776 pts/0 S+ 0:00 grep mysql

24272 ? S 0:00 /bin/sh /usr/bin/mysqld_safe datadir=/var/lib/mysql –socket=/var/lib/mysql/mysql.sock –log error=/var/log/mysqld.log –pid-file=/var/run/mysqld/mysqld.pid user=mysql

24322 ? Sl 0:07 /usr/libexec/mysqld –basedir=/usr –datadir=/var/lib/mysql –user=mysql –pid-file=/var/run/mysqld/mysqld.pid –skip-external-locking –socket=/var/lib/mysql/mysql.sock

Try to access the mysql through the server shell:

# mysql -uadmin -p`cat /etc/psa/.psa.shadow` -D psa

If you can access the mysql, then it is likely that Plesk is ok and you have forgotten the administrator’s password. See the section The Administrator’s Password has been Forgotten for instructions on how to restore it.

The Administrator’s Password Has Been Forgotten

If you forget the Plesk administrator’s password, there are two ways to resolve this issue:

  • restore the password
  • set new password

To restore the Plesk administrator’s password:

  1. Log in to the server via SSH.

  2. Go to PRODUCT_ROOT_D/bin/ where PRODUCT_ROOT_D is /usr/local/psa for RPM-based systems or /opt/psa on DEB-based systems.

  3. Run the admin utility with the --show-password option:

    # ./admin --show-password

To set a new administrator password:

  1. Log in to the server via SSH.

  2. Go to PRODUCT_ROOT_D/bin/ where PRODUCT_ROOT_D is /usr/local/psa for RPM-based systems or /opt/psa on DEB-based systems.

  3. Run the init_conf utility with the new password specified:

    # /usr/local/psa/bin/init_conf --update -passwd new_password

Plesk in a Virtuozzo Container: Broken Layout

When Plesk is installed in Virtuozzo containers, administrators refer to Plesk when performing web hosting operations and to Power Panel when managing their container. The Power Panel becomes available when the administrators turn on the offline-management mode. When this mode is on and Plesk is installed, some controls and menus of Power Panel become available in the top and left navigation panes of Plesk. In other words, Power Panel is partially built into Plesk in offline-management mode.

Since Plesk 10, the integration between panels can lead to unexpected results. For example, some icons in Plesk might not be displayed or the layout might be broken when the offline management is on. To resolve these problems, we recommend that you do not use the integration, and that you access the panels on different ports (4643 and 8443).

To make Power Panel and Plesk operate on different ports, do the following:

  • On Linux servers, connect to the hardware node over SSH and run the following command:

    vzctl set CT_ID --offline_management yes --offline_service vzpp --save

  • On Windows servers, connect to the hardware node over Remote Desktop and run the following commands:

vzctl set CT_ID –offline_management yes –save
vzcfgt set CT_ID offlineservices vzpp

EZ Templates Update Issues in Virtuozzo Containers

Virtuozzo containers 4.0 and later versions can discover EZ templates in a container and perform automatic actions depending on the templates. This feature provided opportunities for business automation software (such as OBAs) to automatically find products installed in a container and start billing the container owner.

The discovery algorithm is straightforward: If the system finds all packages included in an EZ template, it considers that such a template is installed. The major drawback of this approach is that Plesk 9.x and SMB are very close to each other in terms of packages, so the auto-detection engine makes incorrect decisions. Namely, if only one of the applications is present in a container, the system considers that both templates are installed. The most noticeable outcome of this detection problem is that the system fails to update both applications or set proper billing for them.

It is possible to stop the auto detection if you use the billing automation software. To do this, modify the /etc/vztt/vztt.conf file by setting APP_TEMPLATE_AUTODETECTION=no.

Postfix Consumes Too Many Resources in a Container

If you operate in Virtuozzo containers, the Postfix mail service may consume too many resources and, hence, work in an unstable manner. This is particularly likely to happen if there is a lot of outgoing mail that cannot be delivered. By default, Postfix can create up to 100 mail sending processes that will not stop until they send the specified mail.

To reduce resources consumption by Postfix:

  1. Reduce the maximum number of Postfix processes, for example, to 20:

    # postconf -e 'default_process_limit=20'

Disable unused services, for example, ifmail and uucp in the Postfix configuration file /etc/postfix/master.cf.

  1. Reload the Postfix:

    # PRODUCT_ROOT_D/admin/sbin/mailmng --reload-service

    PRODUCT_ROOT_D is /usr/local/psa for RPM-based systems or /opt/psa on DEB-based systems.