Question How to point a domain name at the Plesk control panel

[Bontano]

There seems to be endless resources that tell me how to point a domain at a website under Plesk, but I've yet to find one that tells me how to point a domain at the Plesk control panel. "Advisor" advises me to secure Plesk with SSL, but that can't be done without a domain name.

So, how do you point a domain name at the Plesk control panel?

 

[prattmd]

point your domain A record to the server IP, then your plesk panel can issue an SSL on that domain
make sure your plesk server hostname is that FQDN also

 

[Bontano]

Thanks, @prattmd. It's always the most obvious solutions that occur to me least.

 

[Bontano]

Ok, less obvious:

If you point a domain at your admin panel (say, admindomain.com), how can one use that domain for a website as well? There's a default Plesk page at admindomain.com, but no folder for the root domain in httpdocs that I can see. Where is that default page served from? I can create a site within Plesk for admindomain.com, but its existence seemingly has no effect on the default page.

 

[learning_curve]

@Bontano It's there, it's just hidden in plain sight

First, decide HOW you specifically wish to access your Plesk Interface. Use these two articles for reference:

Customizing Plesk URL

You can choose various options to log in to Plesk Obsidian. By default, you can log in to Plesk via the server IP add...

docs.plesk.com

How to make Plesk interface accessible over a hostname/domain without entering the port number

Applicable to: Plesk for Linux Plesk for Windows Question How to make Plesk interface accessible over a hostname without entering the port number? For example, https://server.example.com. Answer...

support.plesk.com

For the rest of the post below, the assumption made, is that after reading the articles above, you've opted to access your Plesk Interface via domain:8443 only and NOT via domian, because if you do, you the will not see your own data this way, you'll only see your Plesk Interface - This is explained in the above Plesk page links.

Moving on:

Go in to the Hosting Settings Page for the domain that you have chosen to host Plesk on. There you'll see the Document root * field, which by default is (usually) /httpdocs. Again by default (usually) this contains all of the standard Plesk Page data not your Plesk Interface. You'll see all of its files & other content via File Mangager / FTP / SFTP / SSH etc

To change this, two simple options would be,

Either;

Replace ALL of the default Plesk Page data in /httpdocs with all of your own data (don't forget the subdirectories & their contents...) When you re-examine your domain url in say a browser after doing this, you'll now see all of your own data, not the default Plesk Page data.

Or:

Add a new subdirectory to /httpdocs e.g. /httpdocs/bontanoweb Now add all of your own data into this subdirectory. On the Hosting Settings Page change the Document root * field form /httpdocs to /httpdocs/bontanoweb When you re-examine your domain url in say a browser after doing this, again, you'll now see all your own data, not the default Plesk Page data.

The only difference really, is that with the second option, you've retained all of the default Plesk Page data on your domain, just in case.... one day you wish to re-use that default Plesk Page, but don't want to upload it all again. If that was the case, you could then simply reverse the Document root * field from /httpdocs/bontanoweb back to /httpdocs then backup and completely remove /httpdocs/bontanoweb

There's quite a few other options too & some are quite clever, but either of the two above will quickly give you what you're asking for, once you've made your decision on accessing your Plesk Interface.