Install Parallels Plesk Panel on CentOS / RHEL 8

Plesk Panel is a commercial web hosting and server data center automation software. In this article, you will learn how to install Plesk Obsidian on CentOS / RHEL 8.

 

Table of Contents:

• What is Plesk?
• Environment Specification
• Upgdate Linux Server Packages
• Installing Plesk Obsidian on CentOS 8
• Configure Linux Firewall for Plesk
• Accessing Plesk Obsidian
• Conclusion

 

What is Plesk Panel?:

Plesk Panel is a commercial web hosting and server data center automation software with a control panel developed for Linux and Windows-based retail hosting service providers. (Source: Wikipedia)

Plesk's user management model is suitable for dedicated and shared hosting, allowing server administrators to set up new websites, reseller accounts, email accounts, and edit and create DNS entries through a web-based interface.

The hosting automation software was initially released by Plesk Inc. and first went live in 2001. In 2003, Plesk was sold to SWSoft, which became Parallels in 2008. In March 2015, Parallels renamed the service provider division to Odin. In December of the same year, Plesk became a separate business entity. And in 2017, Plesk was acquired by British Oakley Capital Limited and has since been a part of WebPros, a global SaaS platform for server management. Currently, WebPros comprises Plesk, cPanel, WHMCS, XOVI, and SolusVM.

Plesk, with latest version Obsidian 18.x, is available in the following license configurations:

• Plesk Web Admin Edition: Up to 10 domains. For basic management of simple websites, without the extended tools and features.
• Plesk Web Pro Edition: To manage up to 30 domains. It also includes Plesk WordPress Toolkit full-featured.
• Plesk Web Host Edition: Unlimited domains. The administrator can also create additional reseller accounts.

The license price also distinguishes whether a license can be used for a dedicated server or a virtualized server. Licenses for dedicated servers are usually slightly more expensive.

Plesk sells all three licenses for a monthly or annual price directly. All three editions can also be obtained from official license resellers. Detailed Plesk pricing is available on their official website.

 

Environment Specification:

We are using a minimal CentOS Stream 8 virtual machine with following specifications.

• CPU - 3.4 Ghz (2 cores)
• Memory - 4 GB
• Storage - 20 GB
• Operating System - CentOS Stream release 8
• Hostname - plesk-server.centlinux.com
• IP Address - 192.168.116.206 /24

 

Update Linux Server Packages:

Connect with plesk-server.centlinux.com server as root user by using a ssh client.

Update your Linux operating system by executing following dnf command.

# dnf update -y

Check the Linux Kernel and operating system versions.

# uname -r
4.18.0-269.el8.x86_64

# cat /etc/redhat-release
CentOS Stream release 8

 

Installing Plesk Panel (Obsidian) on CentOS 8:

Plesk offers different methods to install Obsidian

• 1-click Plesk Panel installation - It is a fast and hassle-free way of getting a Plesk server with default configuration up and running.
• Installing Plesk Panel using Installer Console - You can install Plesk using the Linux interactive CLI console.
• Installing Plesk Panel using Installer GUI
• Installing Plesk Panel using ISO-images - Plesk provides ISO-images for CentOS and Ubuntu operating systems configured to automatically install it

Here, we are installing the Plesk Panel (Obsidian) by using Installer Console.

Execute wget command to download Plesk Obsidian installer.

# wget https://autoinstall.plesk.com/plesk-installer
--2021-01-23 18:58:31--  https://autoinstall.plesk.com/plesk-installer
Resolving autoinstall.plesk.com (autoinstall.plesk.com)... 89.187.162.50, 2a02:6ea0:d100::11
Connecting to autoinstall.plesk.com (autoinstall.plesk.com)|89.187.162.50|:443... connected.
HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 200 OK
Length: 15730 (15K) [application/octet-stream]
Saving to: âplesk-installerâ

plesk-installer     100%[===================>]  15.36K  --.-KB/s    in 0s

2021-01-23 18:58:33 (135 MB/s) - âplesk-installerâ saved [15730/15730]

Make the downloaded file executable in Linux Bash.

# chmod +x plesk-installer

Execute the downloaded script to install and configure Parallels Plesk Panel (Obsidian) and dependent software components in one shot.

# ./plesk-installer

The installer script displays the link to Plesk Obsidian license. Press ‘F’ key to move forward.

Select the Plesk Obsidian installation type. The default “Recommend” option is good for use, therefore press ‘F’ to continue.

plesk-installer script list down the required software packages. Press ‘F’ to move forward.

 

Plesk Panel (Obsidian) has been installed successfully.

Note down the URL provided by plesk-installer script. This URL will be used to access Plesk Obsidian for the first time.

On our Linux server, the PSA service experiencing problem in startup, so we check the systemd service unit for PSA and found out that the service type is not set properly by the Plesk installer.

Therefore, we edit the PSA systemd unit in vim editor.

# vi /etc/systemd/system/multi-user.target.wants/psa.service

and change type from one-shot to simple.

[Unit]
Description=Plesk Panel
Wants=sw-cp-server.service sw-engine.service
Wants=mariadb.service mysql.service
After=network.target mariadb.service mysql.service

[Service]
Type=simple
RemainAfterExit=yes
ExecStart=/bin/true

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

Start PSA service now.

# systemctl daemon-reload
# systemctl start psa.service

Check the status of PSA service.

# systemctl status psa.service
â psa.service - Plesk Panel
   Loaded: loaded (/usr/lib/systemd/system/psa.service; enabled; vendor preset:>
  Drop-In: /usr/lib/systemd/system/psa.service.d
           âârespawn.conf
   Active: active (exited) since Sat 2021-01-23 20:24:47 PKT; 3s ago
  Process: 36347 ExecStart=/bin/true (code=exited, status=0/SUCCESS)
 Main PID: 36347 (code=exited, status=0/SUCCESS)
    Tasks: 0 (limit: 5804)
   Memory: 0B
   CGroup: /system.slice/psa.service

Jan 23 20:24:47 plesk-server.centlinux.com systemd[1]: Started Plesk Panel.

PSA service has been started successfully.

 

Configure Linux Firewall:

Plesk Panel (Obsidian) runs on default HTTP port. Therefore, you need to allow it in Linux firewall.

# firewall-cmd --permanent --add-service=http
success
# firewall-cmd --reload
success

 

Accessing Plesk Obsidian:

Use the URL provided by Plesk installer to access Obsidian web interface.

Provide contact details, set the password for admin user and select license type.

Plesk Obsidian is initializing configurations for you.

After successful configuration the Plesk Obsidian will take you to Introduction page.

You can always configure your required website later from Plesk Obsidian.

Therefore, Click on "Skip Introduction" to move forward to Obsidian dashboard.

 

Conclusion:

In this article, you have successfully installed Parallel Plesk Panel (Obsidian) on CentOS / RHEL 8. If you feel difficulty understanding the commands and terminologies that were used in this article, then you should read CentOS 8 Essentials: Learn to install, administer and deploy CentOS 8 systems by Neil Smyth.