Important Advisor Extension

[Ruslan Kosolapov]

Hello!

In Plesk Onyx 17.8 Preview #10 we've introduced a new Plesk Extension called Advisor ( Advisor - Plesk Extensions ).



If you've already tried it - share your opinion with us!
If you haven't - give it a try!

 

[mr-wolf]

I tried it, but I'm only running 17.8.10 on a Plesk server that I only use for Authorative DNS, so not much to be seen.
It feels a bit like a promotion of some paid extensions....
Not that I would fall for that.

 

[MarkM]

To be honest, it was the first extension I disabled. I didn't see a purpose and like mr-wolf said - It feels a bit like a promotion of some paid extensions.

 

[Ruslan Kosolapov]

JFYI: we’ve published Advisor 1.1: Advisor - Plesk Extensions

The changes:

* [+] Added a recommendation to configure ModSecurity in tandem with Fail2ban.
* [+] Added a recommendation to configure the Plesk Firewall.
* [+] Added a recommendation to turn on Plesk automatic updates.
* [+] Added a recommendation to switch hosted websites to up-to-date PHP versions.
* [*] Improved messages and descriptions in the Advisor interface.
* [*] Added the "About rating" description explaining what is a server rating and how Advisor counts it.
* [*] Improved how Advisor checks and activates HTTP/2 for hosted websites.
* [*] Removed a recommendation to use the Patchman extension.
* [-] Fixed the issue where installation of a WordPress instance increased the highest possible rating of a server. (EXTADVISOR-156)

 

[eilko]

Hi,

the advisor plugin warns for outdated PHP versions, even if PHP is disabled for that domain.

 

[Martin.B]

To be honest, it was the first extension I disabled. I didn't see a purpose and like mr-wolf said - It feels a bit like a promotion of some paid extensions.

I think some of the tips are useful however there are also a lot of suggestions which look like marketing.
I wonder if it is (or will be) possible to configure what kind of suggestions the extension shows. For our managed servers, we don't like the customers to be able to install some of those extensions, especially since some of them don't make sense in the context the system is running.

 

[Ruslan Kosolapov]

Hello.


We’ve just released Advisor 1.2 (Advisor - Plesk Extensions )


Changelog:

1.2.0 (12 April 2018)

• [+] Added the 'plesk ext advisor' command line utility. Run plesk ext advisor --rating to learn the highest possible rating, your server's current rating both as an absolute number and as a percentage of the highest possible rating, and also your server's Advisor level (low/medium/high).
• [+] Added the recommendation to install Plesk updates.
• [+] Added the recommendation to increase the minimum password strength.
• Improved the recommendation "Switch to Up-To-Date PHP Versions". Advisor no longer suggests switching sites running on PHP 7.0 and 7.1 to PHP 7.2.
• Improved the recommendation "Secure Websites With SSL/TLS Certificates". When securing a website with an SSL/TLS certificate, in addition to the website's domain name, Advisor also secures the domain name with the 'www.' prefix, all existing domain aliases, and webmail.
• Improved the recommendation "Configure ModSecurity & Fail2ban". Advisor now tracks separately whether ModSecurity and Fail2ban are installed and enabled, allowing for three states (from worst to best): not installed, installed but not enabled, installed and enabled. In addition, enabling Fail2ban via Advisor now also enables the "plesk-modsecurity" jail.
• [-] Fixed the issue where trying to install an extension via Advisor resulted in the "Unknown error" message if the installation of the extension failed. (EXTADVISOR-230)
• [-] Fixed the issue where the "Advisor" tab was shown to customers in the left navigation menu in Plesk interface. (EXTADVISOR-247)
• [-] Fixed the issue where Advisor included domains with PHP disabled in the list of domains using outdated PHP versions.(EXTADVISOR-254)
• [-] Fixed the issue where trying to switch selected websites to an up-to-date PHP version resulted in the "Unable to execute command..." message. (EXTADVISOR-291)

 

[Ruslan Kosolapov]

Hi @Martin.B

1. Could you specify what recommendations you'd like to hide?
2. If it will be an option in panel.ini, will it be suitable for you?

 

[eilko]

Hi @Martin.B

1. Could you specify what recommendations you'd like to hide?
2. If it will be an option in panel.ini, will it be suitable for you?

Panel.ini would be ok to hide all commercial recommendations:

The Symantec SSL extension is not installed
KernelCare is not installed
The Opsani extension is not installed
The Opsani extension is not active
Advanced Atomicorp ruleset is not selected

 

[AmeenullahS]

I tried it, but ended in a problem. Now i am unable to access my control panel.

Can anyone share the complete screenshots here.
Edit: Thanks to mark, he uploaded the screenshots here

Is it possible to remove particular extensions (like.. Lets encrypt extension, KernelCare )

I think i wrongly posted my question in "Plesk Onyx for Linux"

 

[IgorG]

Is it possible to remove particular extensions

# plesk bin extension --help

Look at "-u" option.

 

[StéphanS]

Are there currently no panel.ini settings for Advisor Extension yet?
Option to indeed disable certain things, like firewall warning (eg. not useful if VM is already firewalled by a HW firewall), would be wanted here.

 

[RobHost]

Are there currently no panel.ini settings for Advisor Extension yet?
Option to indeed disable certain things, like firewall warning (eg. not useful if VM is already firewalled by a HW firewall), would be wanted here.

Yes, would be very good to have an option to disable this (for us) useless tool! Thanks!

 

[Ruslan Kosolapov]

Hello.

Two days ago we’ve released Advisor 1.3 (Advisor - Plesk Extensions)



Changelog (Change Log for Plesk):

1.3.0 (04 June 2018)

• [+] Added the ability to apply all available recommendations at once by clicking the "Apply Multiple Recommendations" button. Alternatively, you can do so via the CLI by running the plesk ext advisor --apply-recommendations [-list recommendation_code1,recommendation_code2,…] command.
• [+] Added the ability to hide recommendations via the panel.ini file. Note: To get the list of recommendations and corresponding codes, run the plesk ext advisor --advice-list command. To do so, add lines of the following pattern to the panel.ini file:

[ext-advisor]
blacklist = recommendation_code1, recommendation_code2

• [+] Added the recommendation to synchronize server time.
• [+] Added the recommendation to activate scheduled backups.
• [+] Added the recommendation to install the SEO Toolkit extension.
• Improved the "Configure the Plesk Firewall" recommendation: installation of the Plesk Firewall is now more stable.
• Rearranged recommendations so that those giving the most score to the server rating are at the top and added anchor links to such recommendations.
• [-] Fixed the issue where Advisor suggested installing the KernelCare extension in unsupported environments (for example, inside a Virtuozzo container). (EXTADVISOR-344)
• [-] Fixed the issue where the "Advisor" button in the header was absent for customers and resellers. (EXTADVISOR-349)
• [-] Fixed the issue where Advisor could not detect if HTTP/2 was enabled or not. (EXTADVISOR-362)
• [-] Fixed the issue where Advisor suggested switching to a PHP handler that was disabled in Tools & Settings > PHP Settings. (EXTADVISOR-379)
• [-] Fixed the issue where Advisor did not detect that Advanced ModSecurity Rules by Atomicorp was selected. (EXTADVISOR-380)

 

[StéphanS]

Hello.

Two days ago we’ve released Advisor 1.3 (Advisor - Plesk Extensions)

View attachment 14480

Changelog (Change Log for Plesk):

1.3.0 (04 June 2018)

• [+] Added the ability to apply all available recommendations at once by clicking the "Apply Multiple Recommendations" button. Alternatively, you can do so via the CLI by running the plesk ext advisor --apply-recommendations [-list recommendation_code1,recommendation_code2,…] command.
• [+] Added the ability to hide recommendations via the panel.ini file. Note: To get the list of recommendations and corresponding codes, run the plesk ext advisor --advice-list command. To do so, add lines of the following pattern to the panel.ini file:

[ext-advisor]
blacklist = recommendation_code1, recommendation_code2

• [+] Added the recommendation to synchronize server time.
• [+] Added the recommendation to activate scheduled backups.
• [+] Added the recommendation to install the SEO Toolkit extension.
• Improved the "Configure the Plesk Firewall" recommendation: installation of the Plesk Firewall is now more stable.
• Rearranged recommendations so that those giving the most score to the server rating are at the top and added anchor links to such recommendations.
• [-] Fixed the issue where Advisor suggested installing the KernelCare extension in unsupported environments (for example, inside a Virtuozzo container). (EXTADVISOR-344)
• [-] Fixed the issue where the "Advisor" button in the header was absent for customers and resellers. (EXTADVISOR-349)
• [-] Fixed the issue where Advisor could not detect if HTTP/2 was enabled or not. (EXTADVISOR-362)
• [-] Fixed the issue where Advisor suggested switching to a PHP handler that was disabled in Tools & Settings > PHP Settings. (EXTADVISOR-379)
• [-] Fixed the issue where Advisor did not detect that Advanced ModSecurity Rules by Atomicorp was selected. (EXTADVISOR-380)

I've updated my playbook
Thanks for the changes!

 

[danami]

Do you think its possible to add support for our Firewall extension? Right now this reports that a firewall isn't installed when our Juggernaut Firewall extension (CSF firewall) is installed on the system (giving a much better firewall and superior brute force protection). It would be as simple as checking for the file "/etc/csf/csf.conf" exists on the system.

 

[StéphanS]

I think this isninregarsds to the Advisor extension.

 

[J van der Meer]

Got around to installing this advisor thing today, then came to this page to find out how to disable it. As said before by other people; this thing advises me mostly about how much more money I can spend on Plesk. Extensions mentioned even cover the same thing (Let's encrypt / Symantec SSL). Others simply ignore the fact that there are more ways of solving the problem, ways you just dont know cause you dont spend any time analyzing anything. All you do is push your own commercial partners. This reminds me a lot of the Y-Slow ranking blindly giving you points if you happen to use one of their 'approved' CDN without ever checking whether performance was actually better with or without.

In short this has NOTHING to do with 'advisiing', just selling.

 

[daanse]

Do you think its possible to add support for our Firewall extension? Right now this reports that a firewall isn't installed when our Juggernaut Firewall extension (CSF firewall) is installed on the system (giving a much better firewall and superior brute force protection). It would be as simple as checking for the file "/etc/csf/csf.conf" exists on the system.

@Ruslan Kosolapov @IgorG - yes please.
Same Issue here aswell. Sais no FW installed buts not true. its a bit anoying.

 

[Ruslan Kosolapov]

Hi. Regarding Juggernaut Firewall - good point, thanks.