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Get started with Plesk on your VPS

Plesk is a commercial control panel for hosting websites, email, DNS and databases. This guide is for people who run their own VPS or cloud server and want to set up Plesk on it, from the first sign-in to a working website with SSL, email and backups.

For a VPS or cloud server you manage yourself

This guide is for a VPS or cloud server where you manage the operating system yourself. If you use DomainPilot web hosting, you don't need to install a control panel.

How Plesk organizes hosting​

Plesk uses a few terms that are worth knowing before you start:

  • The administrator manages the whole server: settings, updates, extensions and every customer.
  • A customer is a person or business with their own Plesk login.
  • A subscription is a bundle of hosting resources, such as disk space, mailboxes and databases, given to a customer or to yourself. A service plan is a reusable template for subscriptions.
  • Domains (websites) live inside a subscription. One subscription can hold several domains, depending on its limits.

Extensions add features to Plesk, such as security tools or certificate management, and are installed from inside the panel.

Get Plesk onto the server​

There are two ways to start:

  • A ready panel image. Some providers let you pick an image with Plesk already installed when you order the server.
  • The official installer. Create the server with a supported operating system, take a snapshot, then follow the installation guide in the Plesk documentation.
At DomainPilot

DomainPilot VPS plans offer a ready image with Plesk, among other panels. The Plesk licence is billed on top of the server price. VPS is self-managed: DomainPilot looks after the hardware, network and virtualization, and you manage the operating system and the panel.

Sign in for the first time​

Plesk listens on port 8443 over HTTPS:

https://server.example.com:8443

The server's firewall, and any cloud firewall in front of it, must allow this port. Until the server has a certificate from a trusted authority, your browser may warn that the certificate is self-signed (created by the server itself rather than a certificate authority). That is expected on a new server. Check that the address is your own server before you continue.

Complete the initial setup​

The first sign-in starts a short setup. In general terms:

  1. Enter the administrator's contact name and email address. Use an address that is not hosted on this server, so alerts still reach you if the server has a problem.
  2. Set a strong, unique password for the administrator account.
  3. Activate your licence, or start a trial.
  4. Set the server hostname and, if the server will run DNS, the nameservers for your domains, for example ns1.example.com and ns2.example.com. See Nameservers explained.
  5. Create a service plan, then a subscription for your first domain, such as example.com. Add a customer first if the site belongs to someone else.
  6. Point the domain at the server, then upload the site or install an app inside the subscription.

SSL certificates​

Plesk's Let's Encrypt extension issues free certificates for your domains and renews them automatically. Issuing only works once the domain's DNS points at the server, so if it fails, check the A records first. See SSL certificates for how certificates work.

You can also secure the Plesk login itself with a certificate for the server hostname, which removes the browser warning.

Email​

Each domain that sends email from the server needs DNS records: an MX record pointing at the server, plus SPF, DKIM and DMARC records that prove the mail is genuine. If Plesk runs DNS for the domain, it can create many of these for you. Otherwise, copy the values into your DNS provider. See SPF, DKIM and DMARC.

Receiving providers also check reverse DNS, which maps the server's IP address back to a name. It should match the server's hostname. Reverse DNS is set by whoever controls the IP address, so ask your server provider how to set it.

Backups​

Plesk can back up the whole server, a subscription or a single site on a schedule. Store copies off the server too, for example in remote storage, because a backup on the same disk is lost with the server. Server snapshots add another layer before risky changes. See Snapshots and server backups.

Updates and security​

  • Keep Plesk, its extensions and the operating system updated. Plesk can install updates automatically.
  • Use a strong, unique administrator password, and turn on two-factor authentication where available.
  • Open only the ports you need, and restrict remote access to the server where you can.
  • Give customers their own logins instead of sharing the administrator account.

Secure a new Linux server covers the general approach for Linux servers.

Official documentation​

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