Securing Plesk and the Mail Server With SSL/TLS Certificates – Securing Plesk and the Mail Server With a Certificate From Other Certificate Authorities

During Plesk installation, Plesk and the mail server are automatically secured
with a free SSL/TLS certificate from Let’s Encrypt. If, for some reason,
it did not happen, we recommend that you manually secure Plesk and the
mail server with an SSL/TLS certificate from a certificate authority of your choice.

To secure Plesk and the mail server with a certificate from other
certificate authorities:

1. Go to Tools & Settings > SSL/TLS Certificates (under
   “Security”) and click the + Add button.

2. Fill in the fields marked with the asterisk. Pay particular attention
   to the following fields:

   • “Certificate name”. Give the certificate a recognizable name so
     you can tell it apart from other certificates in the server
     repository.
   • “Bits”. The more bits, the more secure the certificate. We
     recommend using the default value (4096).
   • “Domain name”. Make sure that the name in this field matches the
     server hostname.

3. If all the provided information is accurate, click Request.

   Plesk will generate a private key and a certificate signing request
   and display them in under “List of certificates in server pool”.

4. Find the certificate under “List of certificates in server pool” and
   click its name. This will open a page showing the certificate
   properties.

5. Copy the whole content of the “CSR” section (including
   -----BEGIN CERTIFICATE REQUEST----- and
   -----END CERTIFICATE REQUEST-----) to clipboard.

6. Visit the website of the certificate authority of your choice and
   start a certificate ordering procedure. When you are prompted for the
   CSR, paste the data from clipboard. The certificate authority will
   create an SSL/TLS certificate in accordance with the information you
   provided. When you receive your SSL/TLS certificate, save it on your
   local machine or network.

7. Go to Tools & Settings > SSL/TLS Certificates, click Choose
   file under “Upload the certificate here”, select the saved .crt
   file, and then click Upload Certificate.

8. To secure Plesk, click the [Change] link next to “Certificate for
   securing Plesk”. Select the certificate generated during step 3 from
   the drop-down list, and then click OK.

9. To secure the mail server, repeat the previous step for “Certificate
   for securing mail”.