About This Guide

Plesk for Linux Advanced Administration Guide is a companion guide for
the Plesk Administrator’s
Guide. It is
intended for server administrators whose responsibilities include
maintaining hosting servers and troubleshooting server software
problems.

The guide provides step-by-step instructions for performing server
management tasks that require use of Plesk functionality other than the
GUI and GUI-only tasks that administrators may need to perform only in
rare and specific situations. Administrators can use several additional
tools that are supplied in the standard Plesk distribution package to
add customized automation tasks, back up and restore data, and repair
Plesk components and system settings. The tools include a number of
standalone applications, command-line utilities, and the ability to
integrate custom scripting with Plesk.

This guide contains the following chapters:

• Introduction to Plesk. Describes the main components and services
  operated by Plesk, licensing terms, and the ways to install and
  update Plesk components.
• Virtual Hosts Configuration. Describes virtual host concepts and
  their implementation in Plesk. Provides instructions on why and how
  to change their configuration.
• Services Management. Contains descriptions of a number of
  external services used on Plesk server and instructions on how to
  configure and use them.
• System Maintenance. Describes how to change the server host name,
  IP addresses, and locations of directories for storing virtual host
  files, backups, and mail content. This chapter also introduces
  Plesk’s command-line tools, a mechanism for running scripts on Plesk
  events, and the service monitor that allows monitoring and restarting
  of services without logging in to Plesk.
• Backing Up, Restoring, and Migrating Data. Describes how to back
  up and restore Plesk data by means of the command-line utilities
  pleskbackup and pleskrestore, and introduces the tools for
  migrating hosted data between servers.
• Statistics and Logs. Describes how to run on demand statistics
  calculations on disk space and traffic usage, and access web server
  logs.
• Enhancing Performance. Provides information on how to improve
  Plesk functioning by means of software.
• Enhancing Security. Provides instructions on how to protect the
  Plesk server and sites hosted on it from unauthorized access.
• Customizing Plesk Appearance and GUI Elements. Introduces Plesk
  themes that can be used to customize Plesk appearance and branding
  and describes how to remove specific elements of the Plesk GUI or
  change their behavior.
• Localization. Introduces the methods of localizing the Plesk GUI
  into languages for which Plesk does not provide localization.
• Troubleshooting. Describes how to troubleshoot malfunctions of
  Plesk services.