Question can someone clear up confusion about different user account types and subscriptions ?

[jmano]

hello, i'm installing a new server with Plesk 12.5.3 and am really confused how the user management works.

so i have several customers each of which has several domains with websites (no mail)

so i start by creating a customer, in the create dialog box i am forced to create a user for Access to Plesk
and then it asks me to create another user when i create a subscrition.

i already don't understand why i need to create two different users here (it wont let me select the plesk user for this so i'm forced to create a separate one for the subscrition)

now this Plesk user for the customer once created, where is it in Plesk, where can i see a list of all Plesk users ?

Then i want to add several domains to this customer. From the Plesk 12 manual:

• Domain is replaced by subscription.
  The concept of a domain has been replaced with a concept of a subscription - a hosting unit able to run multiple sites (domains and subdomains) over given resources and services.

but when i go to edit the customer i still have two tabs: Domains and Subscriptions. So what gives ?

And how to set this up properly without redundancy and what is the general logic ? In my understanding it should be:

Plan -> Client/Customer (master user) -> one subscription -> manage all domains -> if needed additional web site users per domain or additional admin users for Plesk.

Why is it not possible to simply add several domains to one customer. And most of all why does the subscription have to have the domain name as a name. Cause if a customer has several domains in one subscription than the webroot is automatically created inside the webroot of the main subscription domain which doesn't make any sense at all.
so if customer has a subscription mydomain.com and then adds a domain to this subscritpion for mydomain.net then the folder is created inside mydomain.com:
var/www/vhosts/mydomain.com/mydomain.net

If subscription is replacing the 'domain' concept then i have to create one subscription for each domain, ergo a separate user for each subscription, which again doesn't make any sense at all in my mind.

in the vhosts folder, it would be much easier if each customer would get his own folder because with this 'subscription replaces domain' mess of having to create one subscription per domain (to avoid the nested domain folders) all the clients folders will be in the vhosts folder side by side which is a mess to work with. Maybe there is a way to organize the vhost folder differently, logically by customer ? Can this be adapted somehow ?

myabe i'm just missing the logic here, could someone shed some light on a sensible way to manage customers/subscriptions/domains

 

[UFHH01]

Hi jmano,

before complaining/discussing about possible differences between YOUR logic and the logic of other people, it might help to read the Plesk documentation ( which is as well mostly available in different languages ).

Customers and Resellers ( Plesk 12.5 online documentation for: Administrator's Guide )

Hosting Plans and Subscriptions ( Plesk 12.5 online documentation for: Administrator's Guide )​

Maybe there is a way to organize the vhost folder differently, logically by customer ? Can this be adapted somehow ?

No.

but when i go to edit the customer i still have two tabs: Domains and Subscriptions. So what gives ?

Pls. don't mix NAVIGATION - options over your Plesk Control Panel, with the vhosts - structure on your server. All vhosts are stored as "/var/www/vhosts/domain.com", while their subdomains are all located at for example "/var/www/vhosts/domain.com/subdomain.domain.com" - no mather if created by admins, resellers, or customers.

now this Plesk user for the customer once created, where is it in Plesk, where can i see a list of all Plesk users ?

You should rather call a customer "just" a Plesk - User ( because this user is not stored at "/etc/passwd" on your server as a system - user and this user is only relevant for Plesk ), while subsciption - users ( => subscription - owners ) are rather "system-domain-users" ( stored at "/etc/passwd" as system - users), needed for permission seetings on your server for the depending domain.
Consider to use as well the ADVANCED search options or and listing options at "Home > Customers" and "Home > Subscriptions" if you have a lot of customers/domains on your server:

​

 

[jmano]

thx ... i did read the docs you linked to before posting ... it still doesn't make sense to me, as a hosting company you normally have clients who typically have several domains. so a logical folder structure in the vhosts folder in my opinion would be:

client1
--client1domain1.com
--client1domain1.net
--client1domain1.org
--client1domain2.com
--client1domain2.biz
client2
--client2domain1.com
--client2domain1.net

etc

when you have many clients with many domains it's just super messy to manage as it is. plesk users and domain/system users could just be created inside a client account.

it also would make sense to be able to manage different client domains within Plesk under the clients and not have to have separate subscriptions for each domain, as it is i don't see the point of the client/subscription model and the need to create a separate user for each subscription on top of the client user is just unneccesarily convoluted.