Parallels Plesk Panel 9.0.0 for DEB-based Linux Systems Release Notes

Contents

1. Introduction
2. Installation Instructions
   1. Before Installation
   2. Software Requirements
   3. Installation Steps
   4. Completing Installation
3. Upgrade Instructions
4. Supplied Components
5. What's New
   1. Parallels Plesk Panel 9.0.0 update-2
   2. Parallels Plesk Panel 9.0.0
6. Supported 3rd party components
7. Known Problems and Limitations
8. Contact Information

1. Introduction

Thank you for downloading this release of Parallels Plesk Panel 9.0.0 for Unix. This file contains information that supplements the Parallels Plesk Panel 9.0.0 for Unix documentation such as requirements, information on new features, corrected bugs, known problems etc. This file was updated with the latest information available at release time.

2. Installation Instructions

Refer to the Parallels Plesk Panel Installation Guide available at http://download1.parallels.com/Plesk/Plesk9.0/Doc/en-US/plesk-9.0-unix-installation-guide/index.htm to obtain detailed instructions on installing and upgrading Parallels Plesk Panel.

Other documentation on Parallels Plesk Panel 9.0.0 is available at http://www.parallels.com/en/products/plesk/docs/

Parallels Plesk Panel Knowledge Base is available at http://kb.parallels.com

2.1. Before Installation

Before starting the installation process we strongly recommend that you create a full system backup of the entire server.

# Auxiliary parameters
-PRIVVMPAGES="262144:292912"
+PRIVVMPAGES="362144:392912"
-NUMFILE="8192:8192"
+NUMFILE="12000:12000"

# Disk quota parameters (in form of softlimit:hardlimit) 
-DISKSPACE="1048576:1153434"
+DISKSPACE="5240709120:5368709120"
-DISKINODES="200000:220000"
+DISKINODES="350000:370000"

# Secondary parameters
-KMEMSIZE="21299200:23429120"
+KMEMSIZE="24299200:26429120"

2.2. Software Requirements

Parallels Plesk Panel 9.0.0 for Unix requires one of the following OS installed on your computer:

• Debian 3.1
• Debian 4.0
• Ubuntu 6.06
• Ubuntu 7.10
• Ubuntu 8.04

2.3. Installing Parallels Plesk Panel through Parallels Products Installer

IMPORTANT: To install Postfix mail server, you have to select the Postfix component for installation in Parallels Products Installer. Both command line interface and web interface of Parallels Products Installer can be used for Postfix mail server selection and installation.

To install Parallels Plesk Panel software on a server:

1. Download the latest version of Parallels Products Installer that suits your operating system from http://www.parallels.com/en/download/plesk9/ and save it on your server's hard drive.
2. Change your working directory to the directory where the downloaded Parallels Products Installer is located.
3. Set the execution permission for Parallels Products Installer:

   # chmod +x parallels_products_installer_file_name
   

4. Run the following command in console:

   #export LANG=C
   #export LANG_ALL=C
   

5. Run Parallels Products Installer:


• To install Parallels Plesk Panel through the web interface of Parallels Products Installer, run the following command:

  # ./parallels_products_installer_file_name --web-interface

Open your browser and enter https://hostname:8447/ or https://IP-address:8447/ in the address bar. The Parallels Product Installer web interface will open. Log in as root.

• To install Parallels Plesk Panel through the command line interface of Parallels Products Installer, run the following command:

  # ./parallels_products_installer_file_name

6. Follow the instructions presented on the screen to complete the installation. Refer to Parallels Plesk Panel Installation Guide available at http://download1.parallels.com/Plesk/Plesk9.0/Doc/en-US/plesk-9.0-unix-installation-guide/index.htm if you need detailed installation instructions.
7. When the installation is finished, Parallels Plesk Panel will start automatically.

2.4. Completing Installation

In order to finish the initial configuration of Parallels Plesk Panel, you need to login to Parallels Plesk Panel 9.0.0 for Unix on your host at https://domain.name:8443/ or https://IP-address:8443/

The default username is "admin" and the default password is "setup". Both are case sensitive. For security reasons the password has to be changed upon initial login.

3. Upgrade Instructions

IMPORTANT: Make sure you upgrade all installed components when upgrading to Parallels Plesk Panel 9.0. This is required to avoid conflicts caused by outdated components.

Important notes for users of Parallels Virtuozzo Containers:

Parallels Products Installer supports updating Parallels Plesk Panel inside Parallels Virtuozzo Containers using EZ templates. Compared to the previously used updating scheme, updating through EZ templates will significantly save disk space and will allow running more containers on a single hardware node.

This feature is available only when using EZ templates. To upgrade a contaner with Parallels Plesk Panel this way:

If you are using Virtuozzo 3.x:

1. Install kernel 2.6.9-023stab033.7 or later and VZCTL 3.0.1-23 or later updates on the hardware node.
2. Install the vzaiproxy package on the hardware node. You can download this package from http://autoinstall.plesk.com/vzaiproxy/
3. Install all EZ templates from Parallels Plesk Panel distribution on the hardware node.
4. Run Parallels Plesk Panel installation or upgrade using Parallels Products Installer (either via the web-interface or command line interface) or Parallels Plesk Panel GUI (Home Page > Updates). Follow the instructions presented on the screen to complete the upgrade. Refer to Parallels Plesk Panel Installation Guide available at http://download1.parallels.com/Plesk/Plesk9.0/Doc/en-US/plesk-9.0-unix-installation-guide/index.htm if you need detailed upgrade instructions.

If you are using Virtuozzo 4.x:

1. Install the vzaiproxy package on the hardware node. You can download this package from {http://autoinstall.plesk.com/vzaiproxy}.
2. Change line 16 in file /etc/init.d/vzlinkmgr to the following:

   DEVICE_MAJOR=125

   Change line 32 in file /usr/sbin/vzaiproxy to the following:

   DefaultAgentCmd = ('vzctl', 'exec', '1', '/opt/vzagent/bin/vzlcon')

3. Install all EZ templates from Parallels Plesk Panel distribution on the hardware node.
4. Run Parallels Plesk Panel installation or upgrade using Parallels Products Installer (either via the web-interface or command line interface) or Parallels Plesk Panel GUI (Home Page > Updates). Follow the instructions presented on the screen to complete the upgrade. Refer to Parallels Plesk Panel Installation Guide available at http://download1.parallels.com/Plesk/Plesk9.0/Doc/en-US/plesk-9.0-unix-installation-guide/index.htm if you need detailed upgrade instructions.

 Upgrading Parallels Plesk Panel from GUI

To upgrade your Parallels Plesk Panel software from its user interface, refer to Parallels Plesk Panel Installation Guide available at http://download1.parallels.com/Plesk/Plesk9.0/Doc/en-US/plesk-9.0-unix-installation-guide/index.htm

Upgrading Parallels Plesk Panel through Parallels Products Installer

To upgrade your Parallels Plesk Panel software through Parallels Products Installer:

1. Download the latest version of Parallels Products Installer that suits your operating system from http://www.parallels.com/en/download/plesk9/ and save it on your server's hard drive.
2. Run Parallels Products Installer:


• To update or upgrade Parallels Plesk Panel through the web interface of Parallels Products Installer, run the following command:

  # ./parallels_products_installer_file_name --web-interface

Open your browser and enter https://hostname:8447/ or https://IP-address:8447/ in the address bar. The Parallels Product Installer web interface will open. Log in as root.

• To update or upgrade Parallels Plesk Panel through the command line interface of Parallels Products Installer, run the following command:

  # ./parallels_products_installer_file_name

3. Follow the instructions on the screen to perform the upgrade. Refer to Parallels Plesk Panel Installation Guide available at http://download1.parallels.com/Plesk/Plesk9.0/Doc/en-US/plesk-9.0-unix-installation-guide/index.htm if you need detailed update instructions.

4. Supplied Components

Parallels Plesk Panel 9.0.0 for Unix distrubution packages ships with the following components:

• Qmail 1.03
• ProFTPd 1.3.1
• Courier-Imap 3.0.8
• Horde IMP H3 (4.1.6)
• Horde Ingo 1.1.5
• Horde Kronolith 2.1.8
• Horde Mimp 1.0.2
• Horde Mnemo 2.1.2
• Horde Passwd 3.0.1
• Horde Turba 2.1.7
• Atmail Webmail Light 1.0
• DrWeb 4.33
• SSHTerm 0.2.2
• Apache mod_bw 0.8-5
• Ruby 1.8.6 (only in Plesk distribution for Debian 3.1)
• Ruby Rails 1.2.2 (only in Plesk distribution for Debian 3.1)

5. What's New

Parallels Plesk Panel 9.0.0 update-2

1. [-] Wrong detection and display of mail queue capabilities of Postfix mail server in Parallels Plesk Panel GUI bug is fixed.

2. [-] Inability to send mail when SELinux is enabled and KAV is used as an anti-virus bug is fixed.

3. [-] Inability to send mail due to self-signed SSL certificate used by Postfix mail server bug is fixed.

4. [-] Mail message headers being corrupted after switching to Postfix with enabled SPF protection bug is fixed.

5. [-] Corrupted e-mail messages delivered after switching from Qmail to Postfix bug is fixed.

6. [-] SpamAssassin not processing messages sent to mail aliases after the upgrade bug is fixed.

7. [-] Spam messages are marked as a spam but are delivered to mailboxes anyway even when spam protection policy is set to reject spam bug is fixed.

8. [-] Short mail account names authorization not working after the upgrade from Plesk 8.x bug is fixed.

9. [-] Inability to connect to local SMTP mail service when Qmail mail server is used bug is fixed.

10. [-] Apache web server failing to start after Atmail is removed from the system bug is fixed.

11. [-] Incorrect processing of web applications installed on virtual host when corresponding application distribution is absent in the Application Vault bug is fixed.

12. [-] Stoppage of xinetd service after the installation of Parallels Plesk 9.0.0 on Fedora 8 based server bug is fixed.

Parallels Plesk Panel 9.0.0

1. [+] Resellers - Parallels Plesk Panel user hierarchy is enriched with Reseller accounts in Parallels Plesk Panel 9.0. Resellers sign up their own Clients and resell Web hosting services to them, distributing available resources within the limits acquired by a reseller from the Parallels Plesk Panel Administrator. Resellers can also create and manage their own domains. GUI integration with Parallels Plesk Billing completes the shared hosting solution based on Parallels Plesk products.

2. [+] Overselling and Overuse - The ability to conveniently manage the overselling and overusage of provided resources directly via Parallels Plesk Panel tremendously improves the flexibility of business model implementation and opens up new possibilities for those who provide shared hosting services.

3. [+] Postfix Support - Postfix mail server is finally available to all Parallels Plesk Panel for Unix/Linux users. The long-awaited support of immensely popular alternative to Qmail allows Parallels Plesk Panel administrators to improve the stability, security and performance of all mail-related tasks. Switching from Qmail to Postfix is quick, effortless and transparent both to Parallels Plesk Panel administrator and end-users.

4. [+] APS Catalog - Now you can browse web applications packaged in APS Format and published at www.apsstandard.com/app/ directly from Parallels Plesk Panel administration screen, with ability to add them to the server Application Vault online without the hassles of manual uploading. These applications can be made freely available to all customers or their distribution can be restricted for provision on a per-user basis, allowing you to conveniently sell the applications according to the hosting plans you provide.

5. [+] Redesigned User Interface - Parallels Plesk Panel 9.0 also boasts completely redone user interface designed to help users navigate in Parallels Plesk Panel and perform their tasks quicker and easier. Most popular and important actions are available right away on the user Home Page, while less popular but still important things can be accessed through the drop-down menus located on Home Pages. Navigating through Parallels Plesk Panel is faster than ever now due to ability to select Resellers, Clients, domains and mail accounts via pathbar.

6. [+] New Default Vista Skin - Parallels Plesk Panel 9.0 is presented in brand-new clear and nice Vista visual theme that combines the best elements of most popular Parallels Plesk Panel interface skins and provides less strain on the eyes.

7. [+] Alternative WebMail - Users can now enjoy additional choice of Atmail as their webmail tool. Parallels Plesk Panel 9.0 ships with free Atmail Webmail Light 1.0 and supports more powerful commercial Atmail Webmail 5.5. The selection of webmail can be done on a per-domain basis, guaranteeing that every customer can use their webmail client of choice.

8. [+] PHP over Fast CGI - Site applications based on PHP can be executed much faster and safer with PHP running in the Fast CGI mode.

9. [+] New Backup Tool - Completely revised Parallels Plesk Panel Backup/Restore functionality provides users with much more powerful and flexible backup solution than ever before. Selective data backup and restoration through Parallels Plesk Panel is now a comfortable, painless and fully controllable process. On-the-fly restoration conflicts resolution offers a variety of ways to resolve restoration conflicts prior to actual update of the system, thus guaranteeing success and complete control over the restoration process.

10. [+] Parallels Plesk Billing Bundle - Parallels Plesk Panel 9.0 comes with integrated Parallels Plesk Billing solution, eliminating the need of purchasing a third-party billing software and relieving administrators from the pain of integrating such software with Plesk. Smooth navigation between provisioning and billing portions of Parallels Plesk Billing solution makes hosting provision much more efficient both for hosting service providers and their customers.

11. [+] Improved Hosting Setup UI - User interface for setting up hosting was redone to make the procedure quicker and more intuitive. Hosting now can be created and configured very fast and literally on one page due to radically improved usability of redesigned hosting setup UI.

12. [+] API RPC Protocol 1.6.0.0 - Updated API RPC protocol further improves the ability to intergrate your software solutions with Parallels Plesk Panel and completely supports all important features introduced in Parallels Plesk Panel 9.0.

13. [+] OpenSUSE 11 Support - Parallels Plesk Panel 9.0 for Unix/Linux fully supports OpenSuSE 11.

14. [*] KAV Module Updated - Kaspersky Antivirus Module was updated with the latest extended virus databases.

15. [*] Ruby on Rails Support Improved - Ruby on Rails support was improved.

6. Supported third-party components

Mail servers

1. Qmail 1.03
2. Postfix 2.2 and higher

Antiviruses:

1. DrWeb 4.33
2. Kaspersky AV 5.0.0.49

DNS servers:

1. BIND DNS Server

FTP servers:

1. ProFTPD 1.3.1

Web Statistics:

1. Webalizer
2. AWStats

Web Scripting:

1. Perl
2. PHP 4
3. PHP 5
4. Python
5. SSI
6. Apache Tomcat
7. Apache ASP
8. ColdFusion
9. Miva Empresa
10. Ruby
11. Ruby Rails

Web Administration Tools:

1. phpMyAdmin 2.8.2.4
2. phpPgAdmin 3.5.4
3. SSHTerm 0.2.2

Database servers:

1. MySQL 4
2. MySQL 5
3. PostgreSQL

Web Mail Solutions:

1. Horde IMP H3 (4.1.6)
2. Atmail Webmail 5.5

Spam Filter:

1. SpamAssassin

7. Known Problems and Limitations

• Upgrade from Plesk 9 Beta to Parallels Plesk Panel 9.0 Release is not supported!
• By default TLS support is switched off for Postfix mail server due to Postfix using self-signed SSL certificate. To enable TLS support for Postfix, install a valid SSL certificate and run the following command:

  postconf -e 'smtp_use_tls=yes'
  mailmng --reload-service
  

  Note that mailmng utility is located inside Parallels Plesk Panel installation.
• If you are experiencing issues with delivery of mailing list messages to local recipients, find the file mm_cfg.py from mailman package on your server and add the following line to the end of this file:

  DELIVERY_MODULE='Sendmail'

• Due to the massive amount of changes in Parallels Plesk Panel 9.0.0 GUI, old custom (third-party) skins for Plesk 8.x are not compatible with Parallels Plesk Panel 9.0.0. After you upgrade to Parallels Plesk Panel 9.0.0, all custom (third-party) skins will become unregistered to avoid visual issues.
• Language packs for Plesk 8.x are not compatible with Parallels Plesk Panel 9.0.
• Postfix mail server requires authorization with full mail account names like 'user@domain.com', as opposed to short names like 'user' allowed by Qmail. Upon switching from Qmail to Postfix the authorization mode will change accordingly, and all mail clients configured to authorize using short names will not be able to send or receive mail through your mail server.
• If you are using Parallels Plesk Panel in PVC environment, it is strongly recommended to use only the latest OS templates.
• Before creating a domain through CLI for a reseller or a client, make sure that this reseller or client has at least one free IP address in the IP pool for proper domain creation.
• If you want to install Parallels Plesk Panel 9.0.0 with SSO, it is strongly recommended to install SSO version 2.2 to avoid installation errors and ensure proper functioning of Parallels Plesk Panel.
• Atmail Webmail Light 1.0 will be uninstalled automatically if you switch from PHP5 to PHP4 through Parallels Products Installer because Atmail Webmail Light 1.0 is not compartible with PHP4.
• Atmail might not be installed when installing Parallels Plesk Panel through EZ templates since Atmail requires PHP5, while EZ templates might install only PHP4 depending on your OS and system configuration. To resolve this issue, install Atmail before installing Parallels Plesk Panel.
• If you are running Parallels Plesk Panel on Ubuntu 8.04 LTS server installed in Parallels Virtuozo Containers environment, you might encounter the following or similar error when trying to install plesk9-antivirus EZ template:

  Get:1 http://mirror.plesk.ru hardy-updates/universe ia32-libs 2.2ubuntu11 [20.9MB]
  deb2vzdeb: invalid debian file /vz/template/ubuntu/8.04/x86_64/apt/archives/ia32-libs_2.2ubuntu11_amd64.deb

  To resolve this issue, install Parallels Virtuozzo Containers 4.0 tools version TU-4.0.0-438 or higher.
• If you are upgrading Parallels Plesk Panel from version earlier than 8.3 and you use SBM (Sitebuilder Module), please read the Knowledge Base article at http://kb.parallels.com/en/5250 before performing the upgrade.
• Users of Internet Explorer 6.0 might encounter minor graphical issues when browsing the list of web applications in a specific application category. It is recommended to upgrade IE 6.0 to IE 7.0 or use another browser.
• Mail services work incorrectly with domains that have case-sensitive names.
• It is not recommended to use period in the FTP account password for data backup on remote FTP location.
• After mail service is switched off on a domain, mail services on all domain aliases of this domain will continue to work.
• If you want to migrate from Plesk 7.5.x on Debian 3.1 with SiteBuilder2 installed, you should upgrade Parallels Plesk SiteBuilder before migrating Parallels Plesk Panel.
• If you upgrade Plesk 8.x to Parallels Plesk Panel 9.0 on Ubuntu 8.04 and you want to change your mail server from Qmail to Postfix, it is strongly recommended to upgrade Plesk without changing the mail server, then launch Parallels Products Installer and install Postfix after the upgrade. This method of upgrade is preferred since it avoids possible apt dependency issues.
• Parallels Plesk Panel cannot be installed through Parallels Products Installer on a 32-bit VE located in a 64-bit Parallels Virtuozzo Containers 3.x node.
• If you are using an x86_64 architecture system and want to use Adobe ColdFusion on the server, you need to install the gcc and apache2-dev packages and then compile mod_jrun by running the buildmodule.sh utility from the directory <Parallels Plesk Panel installation directory>/admin/sbin. If installation fails with the error message "dpkg: error processing /var/cache/apt/archives/libc6_2.3.6.ds1-13etch5_amd64.deb (--unpack): trying to overwrite `/usr/lib64', which is also in package sw-cp-server", then you need to either reinstall these packages with --force-yes parameter, or upgrade or remove the conflicting package sw-cp-server. After that, complete the ColdFusion configuration through the Parallels Plesk Panel (Settings > ColdFusion Settings).
• If you are using Parallels Virtuozzo Containers and fail to upgrade using the vzpkg update command because of package dependency problems, try using the vzpkg -f install command.
• Mailing list users are counted as mail accounts for mail accounts limit of the license key.
• Authorization with short mail account names can be broken after the installation or upgrade of Parallels Plesk Panel with Qmail. To resolve this issue, run the following command:

  /opt/psa/admin/sbin/mchk

• If you are using Parallels Virtuozzo Containers, you need to either remove the anacron package from the system, or make sure that this service is started and running. Otherwise, the scheduled tasks required for Parallels Plesk Panel to operate (such as the  statistics processing and scheduled backup tasks) will not be performed.
• To upgrade Parallels Plesk Panel inside Parallels Virtuozzo Containers, you need to use the command vzpkg -f install <templates>.
• To avoid issues with inability to remove e-mail messages through Atmail Webmail Light 1.0, go to Atmail settings and select the Auto Delete Trash option.
• If you previously used Parallels Plesk Panel with Sitebuilder module for managing several Sitebuilder servers, after upgrading to Parallels Plesk Panel 9.0.0, you will be able to use only one Sitebuilder system installed on the same server where Parallels Plesk Panel is installed: all data will be transferred to Parallels Plesk Panel only from the active Sitebuilder system. 
• If you are using SSHTerm from Parallels Plesk Panel, make sure that PasswordAuthentication directive is set to yes in the /etc/ssh/sshd_config file.
• If you want to upgrade Plesk 8.0.x or earlier installed through EZ templates to Parallels Plesk Panel 9.0, you need to install separate new EZ templates for each installed Plesk module upon the upgrade. Make sure you do not remove the old EZ modules template since it will result in removal of all modules from the container, otherwise you will have to reinstall the new EZ templates for each module.
• When you install or upgrade Parallels Plesk Panel inside Parallels Virtuozzo Containers using EZ templates, the list of available components in Parallels Products Installer or Parallels Plesk Panel (Server -> Updater) may indicate that some of the components are unavailable. This can mean the following:
  • If the component was previously installed in a container, then there are no updates in the repository at autoinstall.plesk.com or the respective EZ template was not installed on a hardware node.
  • If the component was not previously installed in a container, then the respective EZ template was not installed on a hardware node.
• When installing or upgrading Parallels Plesk Panel in Parallels Virtuozzo Containers using EZ templates, selecting one component in Parallels Products Installer or Parallels Plesk Panel (Home Page > Updates) may result in installation of several components because a single EZ template can correspond to a number of components.

  Example: when you select the 'base' component for installation, ASP support for Apache is also installed because 'mod_asp' is a part of the 'base' component.

• If you change a SOA record in a domain 98 times during one day, the SOA serial number cannot be changed any more and using the Restore Defaults function removes all the records from the DNS zone.
• If you change a SOA record in a domain 98 times during one day, the SOA serial number cannot be changed any more and the DNS service for the DNS zone cannot be switched on/off or switched to slave/master mode.
• If you are using Parallels Virtuozzo Containers on Ubuntu 6.06 and fail to update using the vzpkg update command because of Samba dependency error, update Samba manually using the vzpkg install <container id here> -p samba command.
• Parallels Plesk Panel servers using Single-Sign On service (required for integration with Parallels Plesk Billing) will not be accessible if Single-Sign On service stops working for some reason. To access Parallels Plesk Panel in this case, you have to switch off the usage of Single-Sign On by going to /usr/local/psa/bin/ and running command sso --disable.
• DNSBL will be switched off after the upgrade from Plesk 8.x with enabled DNSBL to Parallels Plesk Panel 9.0 with Postfix. In this case you will have to switch DNSBL on manually in Parallels Plesk Panel.
• In order for Parallels Plesk Panel to work correctly with Sitebuilder, upload Sitebuilder license key in Sitebuilder before creating Parallels Plesk Panel users with corresponding users in Sitebuilder. Otherwise it is required to manually update the limits in Sitebuilder plans to avoid limit-related errors in Sitebuilder
• When Parallels Plesk Panel is being installed inside Virtuozzo PVC through Parallels Products Installer using EZ templates, PHP support might not be available for selection in Parallels Products Installer interface. If you happen to encounter this issue, disregard the error message and proceed with installation, because PHP will be installed despite what error text is saying.

8. Contact Information

Parallels Headquarters
13755 Sunrise Valley Drive Suite 600
Herndon, VA 20171 USA
Phone: +1.703.815.5670, Fax: +1.703.815.5675

Web: http://www.parallels.com

E-mail:
For billing information, email accounting@parallels.com
For purchasing or partnering information, email sales@parallels.com
For technical support, use our Online Support Form.
To report problems with Parallels Plesk software, email bugreport@parallels.com
For information on career opportunities with Parallels, email careers@parallels.com
For press contact information, email press@parallels.com
For information about becoming a Partner, email partners@parallels.com
For information on translating Parallels Plesk Panel into your language, email i18n@parallels.com
For general product information, email info@parallels.com

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Patented hosting technology protected by U.S.Patents 7,099,948; 7,076,633.
Patents pending in the U.S.