how do i hide web presence builder and applications button?

[Linulex]

Hello,

I want to use installatron so i need to hide / delete / uninstall the application vault tab/button in plesk 10.4.4 and i want to completly uninstall the site builder. How can i do this?

I am getting fed up with all the unwanted **** that plesk is trying to force on to me.

regards
Jan

 

[Sergey L]

Hi,

Why not to disable them in the service plan / subscription if you don't want them?

Regards

 

[Linulex]

Because this is a simple basic security rule:

repeat a 1000 times and let the plesk developers wright it 100000 times:

- everything not needed/used must not be installed.

Everything to much installed can and will cause security issues at some point in the future. Knowing plesk and there security track it will be more sooner then later.
I still have nightmares from having 3 servers rootkitted because it took plesk 7 days to fix the proftpd issue in nov 2010, while proftpd had a new version within hours of the exploit being known.

I repeat:

How do i delete ????

 

[Sergey L]

You originally asked how do you hide these tools from your customers and you have an easy way to do that.

Uninstall/delete is different and at this moment you cannot uninstall/delete support of applications, file manager, web presence builder, php settings editor, dns editor, most of server tools, etc. These features are shipped as a part of Plesk core, removing their files may cause software malfunction and Plesk doesn't support this. I cannot remember a security vulnerability through web presence builder.

Regards

 

[Linulex]

You originally asked how do you hide these tools
Regards

I want to use installatron so i need to hide / delete / uninstall
/ delete / uninstall
/ delete / uninstall
/ delete / uninstall

reading not your strongest point i presume?

I dont care is there has never been an issue with it, up till nov 2010 there has never been an issue that servers could get rooted with proftpd either.

So apart from the mindblowing degrees one must have to use plesk 10 (userfriendlyness went from 10 in plesk up to 9.5.4 down to 0.5 in plesk 10), now you tell me that you also install a whole load of **** no one wants, nobody is waiting for and as i know plesk (and read these forums a bit) are half working and now you tell me they cant be uninstalled.

Do you even "think" about these things at plesk hq? or do you annoy customers on purpouse?

 

[Gabev]

Right ...Again those undemocratic responses from the usual support ppl ....Sergey , did u actually tried to make available one apllication to a customer and than tried to removed it ? I DID and thats what i get :

Error: Some of the selected apps were not deleted.
Error: Package still in use and cannot be removed

NOW , mr Sergey , u tell us what a ... is going on ?

I think u should really investigate what your customers are telling you ..before giving such a brave answer ..dont forget that your salary comes from US(THE CUSTOMERS) buying your licenses..

I did DISABLE the permission to access the Appvault in ALL subscription and , guess what ? the APPLICATION button or tab is still there ..so far so good right?

LINULEX is very right when he suggest that dev ppl at plesk should stop pushing down our throats all kinda junk scripts packaged into the core of plesk , because WE DONT NEED THEM ...but i guess the dictatorial communist style is still alive today , ..really Sergey, you guys sound like "We know what it's good for you , U guys dont " ...doesnt this kinda attitude remainds you of papa brejnev?

So , your solution in which you DISABLE the access to App Vault DOESNT WORK ...should i mention also that i run the latest ver 10.4.4 of 'Pleosk' on ubuntu ..

Any takers on this one?

 

[custer]

Hi Gabev,


I've tried to reproduce the issues you've mentioned, using our internal test installation of Plesk 10.4.4 with all microupdates installed.

did u actually tried to make available one application to a customer and than tried to removed it

I've checked the following scenario to cover all possible cases:

1. Created a new Service Plan, added Wordpress and сleared "Access to App Catalog" checkbox.
2. Created a customer and subscribed him to this Service Plan.
3. Logged in under customer - no Applications tab, no mention of Apps on Home Page.
4. Logged in under admin and selected "Access to App Catalog" checkbox in the Service Plan.
5. Logged in under customer - Applications tab available w/ only Wordpress. App block present on Home page w/ Wordpress in the list of featured apps. Installed Wordpress on a subscription.
6. Logged in under admin and removed Wordpress from the Service Plan.
7. Logged in under customer - Applications tab available w/ zero apps, existing Wordpress installation still accessible.
8. Logged in under admin and cleared "Access to App Catalog" checkbox.
9. Logged in under customer - no Applications tab, existing Wordpress installation still accessible. It is possible to get to Applications tab content by going to Wordpress installation management screen and clicking Up Level - however, there's nothing to do there.
10. Logged in under admin and went to customer subscription, then uninstalled Wordpress.
11. Logged in under customer - no Applications tab, no mention of Apps on Home Page, no Wordpress installation.

I haven't encountered any errors you've reported, so this leads me to believe this might be a problem of your particular Plesk installation. Unfortunately, you didn't provide enough specifics about your scenario/situation, so it's possible I've missed something when checking. If you can provide more information about your scenario (using steps above as reference would be great), we'll check it again. If we won't be able to reproduce the issue after your clarification, we can take a look at your server to figure out what's wrong with your installation and how to fix it.

I did DISABLE the permission to access the Appvault in ALL subscription and , guess what ? the APPLICATION button or tab is still there ..

Have you tried logging in under customer's account to verify this? I'm asking this because there's a fundamental difference between going to customer's subscription under admin account and under customer's own account in Plesk 10. If you go to a subscription under admin, Plesk does not hide some controls/buttons related to the functionality that was made unavailable to customers via Service Plan. Let me use an example to explain it more clearly:

Suppose I'm an admin and I don't want my customers to play with DNS management settings. I clear "DNS zone management" checkbox on Permissions tab of my Service Plan. When I go to customer's subscription logged in under admin, I will still see DNS management - because I'm a server administrator and I have to manage DNS zone for these customers when needed. However, if I log in under customer's account, I will not see DNS zone management button at all.

In other words, I think your problem is that you are visiting customer's subscription while being logged as administrator, see things that shouldn't be available to customers and you think that customers see these things too. In reality, if you have disabled access to Application Catalog, you will still see it (and that's working as intended), but your customers won't be able to see anything (and that's working as intended too).


Please let me know if my post made things clear, Gabev. If you have any other questions or you continue to experience difficulties, don't hesitate to contact me.

 

[custer]

To everyone who wants to hide applications on their Plesk installation:


Add the following lines into $PRODUCT_ROOT/admin/conf/panel.ini:

[aps]
enabled = false

This should completely hide everything related to applications from Plesk UI. Let me know if this solves your issue, guys.

 

[Faris Raouf]

In 10.4.4 there's no panel.ini to add anything to.

However, creating that file, and adding the content mentioned by igor, works a treat!

If only I could do the same with SiteBuilder.

 

[Linulex]

When I go to customer's subscription logged in under admin, I will still see DNS management - because I'm a server administrator and I have to manage DNS zone for these customers when needed.

WRONG WRONG WRONG !!!!

This is the type thinking i start hate from plesk. You decide what i "have" to do as admin. Up to plesk 8.6.0 i could hide the dns button for everyone, even myself as admin and that is what i want/need because i dont use the plesk bind. We use external dns servers with 2 powerdns server so all i need is an event in the eventmanager to enter the dns and my own module to manage the dns in the powerdns mysql. i NEVER use/need the build-in bind, so i want to hide that totaly.

Before the M$ guy started to rape our beloved control panel all was well, now its becoming total **** according to the best M$ tradition. If we wanted that **** way of thinking we would offer windows hosting. And some totally beside the point myth busting is not going to talk wrong things right.

Is there a way to delete the apps and the sitebuilder? i dont want that junk on my production servers, and from what i read on the forum here and elsewhere i am not alone. Or is the only way to get rid of them rpm -e --nodeps | grep psa ??

Is there any news on plesk 9.5.4 for centos 6.x ? If not i fear you are going to loos a lot of clients.

I am using plesk since version 1.3 but i have strong doubts i will ever see version 13.

regards
Jan

 

[Blake@Parallels]

Hi Jan / Linulex,

Throughout this thread, you have been nothing but abusive toward our developers and moderators who are just trying to help. We're always open to discussion, criticism, advice, etc. and appreciate all customer feedback as it helps us continue to improve.

But, the level of discourse should be respectful. Please keep this in mind for future posts.

 

[custer]

Hi Linulex / Jan.

Hiding DNS management control both for admin and users might make sense in your case, but it will not make sense for those who use DNS server shipped with Plesk. In other words, what might look "wrong" to you, might be just right for a lot of other users. So far we I can't remember any negative feedback on current implementation of controls visibility policy, except for your post. Given that the policy is more than 2 years old, it seems unlikely that it's fundamentally wrong, as you claim. It sounds reasonable to me, though, that admin should be able to completely hide a part of Control Panel for special cases like you've described -- we'll have to discuss this internally.

There is no way to "delete apps", because they are not installed on your server. Application tab is not an actual product like Web Presence Builder -- it's a place in the Control Panel where applications from remote Application Catalog are shown. There is nothing to delete or uninstall, so hiding all application-related functionality (as I've described above) should do what you're essentially asking for.

We are discussing the possibility of making WPB an optional component of Control Panel, but this is not an easy thing to do because we have to cover multiple cases such as "install Plesk w/o WPB, then add WPB", "install Plesk w/ WPB, then uninstall WPB", and so on. I understand that you will not install WPB at all, but other cases might be valid for other customers, so we'll have to support them. Moreover, it's not 100% clear whether requests to uninstall WPB are caused by security concerns, visibility concerns, free disk space concerns or by simply not wanting to install something you don't need. This is important for us because we want to address the root cause of the issue.

If you have more feedback on anything related to applications or WPB, please let me know. I would appreciate if we kept the discussion civil. Thank you.

 

[Linulex]

So far we I can't remember any negative feedback on current implementation of controls visibility policy, except for your post.

This is exactly the very same behavior i am complaining about. How can you say you never had complaints about this being visible/not visible ??? please read the post in this very thread from Gabev. He is complaining about the app tab being visible.

There is nothing to delete or uninstall, so hiding all application-related functionality (as I've described above) should do what you're essentially asking for.

OK, that is solved then, but why does it take from jan 4 to jan 30 to give give an answer on a public forum??? this is something that should be in your manual from day 1, no before day one, in the release notes of the preview.

Moreover, it's not 100% clear whether requests to uninstall WPB are caused by security concerns, visibility concerns, free disk space concerns or by simply not wanting to install something you don't need. This is important for us because we want to address the root cause of the issue.

Well, there is no way to say this polite. If you really dont know this then you must stop making a server control panel that has root access. Let me explain the basic security policy on EVERY public and/or production server: NEVER install something you are not using.
thus: i am not going to offer it to my clients so i don't want it visible, if i am not going to offer it it has no place on the server so following sys admin rule 1.0 i don't install it. If it is installed as part of something else i want to be able to uninstall it. If it makes some disk space free that handy but very secondary bonus. So the correct answer is: all of the above!

If you have more feedback on anything related to applications or WPB, please let me know. I would appreciate if we kept the discussion civil. Thank you.

I have tried/emailed this forum, plesk support, my account manager, the person that does the expert service and everyone else i could find an email address of at parallels, no one ever answered me, the only one that gave me an answer was my account manager saying that he "passed it on", with no answer from upstream of course. It took some public abuse on the forum before you even noticed me, so if thats what it takes to get my and a lot more customers point across, ill keep doing that. If you start listening to my grieves, and i am sure the grieves from many other clients, ill stop.

My main complain is: i want to use plesk 9.5.4 on centos 6. I have managed to install it very easy by changing /etc/redhat-release, so its as easy as that for the person that builds the installer. but installing it like that i have no official support and ill better use something else then. If i have to start using RHEL it will cost me 20K+ $ a year, will you pay for for that?
i will never use plesk 10, or should i say paralles 1.0? User friendliness went away, i hope only on vacation, security is a mess, and please don't get me started on 'subscriptions'. I am like my clients: i want 1 button in 1 place to make 1 email address. I want 1 place where i can enter how much resources my client may use.

why do i say security is a mess: apache ! I refuse to install an apache server other then the one provided by centos or another well known source that is on top of security. There are 2 programs not from the upstream OS in plesk: qmail and proftpd. Yes you feel where im going: we (and a lot more ppl) had servers rooted trough the proftpd security in nov 2010. So ill be damned if i let you install another, and i dear say even more vital peace of software on my public production servers. This is the very same reason i don't want to use cpanel or directadmin.

another complain now is that you start pushing us towards plesk 10+ by stop selling the previous versions. at the moment the sale of 8.6 is stopped and 9.5 is EOL at the end of 2012 so support stops then. Will the sale of 9.5 stop to then? if so, you will loose lots of clients. If i could use plesk 9.5.4 on centos 6 and buy it for years to come i will hapelly use it, even without support, but ill be damned if i start using plesk 10 in this shape and form.
If i want to use windows xp, or 95, i can do so, i still can buy them (even only from a second hand shop but still). The company that was most notorious for making things complicated and not listening to clients does not even make it mandatory to use there latest product.

It is possible that i am wrong, but its more likely that i am one of the few that cares enough to complain. Maybe the rest just cant be bothered and just moves on to a different control panel. You will never hear feedback from big companies with thousands of servers because the sys admins there are employees who really care from 9 to 5 but at 5:01 they cant be bothered anymore because there not working anymore. Its the small to medium sized companies that will have the most problems. And remember, 30 companies that have 100 servers are more then 1 company that has 2500 servers.

If you want to know the rest of the story: ask for all my mails internaly that i have send. I am at a point i really cant be bothered anymore to yet again start explaining it all over again.

regards
Jan