Resolved Best way to develop a website in Plesk is by modifying the host file on my Mac

[hermes]

Server operating system version

MacOS Catalina 10.15.7

Plesk version and microupdate number

AlmaLinux 8.7 (Stone Smilodon)

Hi, here is the situation.
I have been developing websites using cPanel for years.

Until now, when I had a client with a website in production, I would mount the new website in cPanel, modify the host on my Mac to point to it (also on the client's computer), and then we could work together on the new website. Of course, the web in development gave problems with the certificate, not having the real IP pointing to the real server. But once the browser passed/saved the security error, the web worked without problems. When the new website was finished, I changed the DNS to point to the real server, and that was it!

Now I have a new Plesk Obsidian server with Alma Linux 8, and I can't do the same. The solution works more or less, but it is so sluggish and slow, and generates PHP and Plesk errors related to the certificate and SSL every time I click on any page in the menu. See some of them below:

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[Wed Jan 11 15:52:27.187384 2023] [ssl:warn] [pid 728556:tid 140022633106880] AH01909: domain.com:443:0 server certificate does NOT include an ID which matches the server name
[Wed Jan 18 15:55:12.246632 2023] [proxy_fcgi:error] [pid 1404689:tid 140450757322496] [client 92.41.33.123:0] AH01067: Failed to read FastCGI header, referer: https://www.domain.com/wp-admin/post.php?post=143&action=edit
[Wed Jan 18 16:05:52.787605 2023] [proxy_fcgi:error] [pid 1405621:tid 140450514065152] (70007)The timeout specified has expired: [client 92.41.33.123:0] AH01075: Error dispatching request to : (polling), referer: https://www.domain.com/wp-admin/post.php?post=143&action=edit
------------

It is impossible to work with the dev website and Plesk, and saving any change on a simple WordPress page takes a lot of time.
I've tried some solutions I've found on the forum to fix the errors, but none of them solve anything.

That's why I am asking you...
Plesk is very secure and surely more restrictive in terms of security than cPanel.
But... Can I continue working with Plesk as I used to do in cPanel?
Any idea how to do it properly?

I want to avoid the expense of that old server in cPanel, but if Plesk is no solution, I guess I will have to keep working in cPanel and forget about Plesk.

I appreciate any help you can provide me.
Thanks ahead!

 

[Peter Debik]

The issue that you describe can be linked to inappropriate PHP settings. Normally, all here try to provide a solution for a given issue, but in your case I would like to propose change the workflow a bit. The reason is that developing Wordpress websites in Plesk is super easy and highly reliable. It should not give you any headaches at all, especially with the phantastic WP Toolkit that Plesk provides.

Forget about editing the host file. There is an easier way. I propose this solution, maybe you want to give it a try:

1) Create either any real domain on your Plesk server or create a subdomain to an existing domain. If you do not want to spend money on a real domain and neither would like to chose a subdomain, then I recommend to use a free *.plesk.page domain that you can select when you click the "Add Domain" button. It won't have SSL, but for development purposes that will do anyway.

2) Use WP Toolkit to "Install Wordpress" to that domain. Apply all the security settings you wish, update the plugins, install your themes or do this directly in Wordpress afterwards.

3) Develop the website as you are used to on that test domain. There will be no need to configure special domain routes on your clients' computers or on your own, because you can access your Wordpress as if it was a real site on a real domain. Actually it is, it is just named differently.

4) When you are done and want to transfer the site to production, simply use the ingenious "Clone" link in WP Toolkit. This will clone the complete website to your real, final production domain. And it will update the URLs from the development domain to the production domain in the cloning process. Cloning normally only takes anywhere between 30 to 60 seconds and you'll be all set afterwards. No need for complicated migration processes, simply "clone" and after a few mouse clicks, Plesk will publish your test site to your production domain within seconds.

 

[hermes]

Oops! Thank you so much!
Of course, I will try it with my following website; I have more than 3 new ones to develop in the following months.
But, sorry to be a nag.
With this one I'm working on now, what do you suggest?
Maybe clone it to a new fake domain, as you have pointed out above?
Or is there a solution to avoid all these SSL issues?

 

[Peter Debik]

"server certificate does NOT include an ID which matches the server name" --> Ignore.
"AH01067: Failed to read FastCGI header," and "timeout" --> Different reason, very likely an unresponsive script or an infinite loop or rewrite or a rewrite to a custom error page that does not exist redirecting to a custom 404 error page that does not exist etc. Something like that is most often causing this situation.

 

[hermes]

Thank you so much for your answer.
Yesterday I had a terrible and long day dealing with Plesk.
All my WordPress sites in my new Plesk server with 2 Cores and 4 Gigas of RAM worked very slowly in both the back and front. I mean, 20-30 seconds after clicking on any menu in the backend or deactivating or activating a plugin.

I upgraded to 4 Cores and 6 Gigas of Ram, but that didn't fix the issue. The people on my server changed from FPM managed by Apache to FPM managed by Nginx, which didn't fix anything either. The final solution that did the trick was to install LiteSpeed Server.

My reason for changing to Plesk from cPanel was that cPanel is getting increasingly expensive. But no offense, if I need to pay for LiteSpeed, Plesk Licenses, the hosting, and the double Ram that I usually use with cPanel, I prefer using cPanel and its expensive licenses. LOL

I hope the people on my server can fix the problem because at this moment, and again no offense, don't take me wrong, moving my 27 client's accounts to Plesk could have been one of my worse errors in the last years. I knew that they were different systems, but not as much different regarding performance.

But yeah! Its community is strong, as I can see, and that's a clear and positive point to consider.

Again Peter, thank you so much for your help on this issue.
But I'm starting to see that there are more things involved in my problem than SSL certificates.

Cheers!

 

[Peter Debik]

For the speed issue, it would be good to check the load on PHP-FPM processes on the system. It will also help to analyze access_ssl_log and error_log for any suspicious behavior.

 

[hermes]

Yeah! I saw that its 4Gb of RAM is behind the failure. Actually, Plesk was the culprit, and after making some changes and doing some maintenance things, everything is back to normal. I've activated FPM served by Nginx, by the way. It's not a big difference, but I won a millisecond on every website. So happy about the change to Plesk! Thanks Peter for your help on this!

 

[mow]

BTW, for getting rid of the certificate errors you could also grab the certificate from the production server and import it into your plesk development server.

Or you generate a self-signed certificate for the domain in Plesk, which only needs to be imported once in the browser or system's certificate store. The browser only keeps complaining if the certificate does not match the domain (or is expired).