New site defaults to /var/www/vhosts/default/htdocs - Plesk 12.0.18 on Amazon AWS with Plesk 12 AMI

[flaxton]

Long-time Plesk user (and Parallels and Ensim before that). This is my second attempt to test Plesk 12, with the same result - I add a brand new site, but my changes to the site web documents have no effect. I found that regardless of what the Apache configuration shows for the site, it is actually pointing to:

/var/www/vhosts/default/htdocs

instead of:

/var/www/vhosts/{site}/httpdocs

as it should. I see what looks like a proper configuration in /etc/httpd/conf/plesk.conf.d/vhosts/{site}.conf

Why is it ignoring it, or any idea what is going on?

I confirmed the location by adding a folder to /var/www/vhosts/default/htdocs with a default page index.html and it displays it. So it is definitely pointing to the wrong place!

This is a brand new install, straight from the Plesk 12 AMI on Amazon.

Plesk 12.0.18
Plesk 12 AMI with CentOS 6.6
MySQL 5.1.73
PHP 5.3.3 (also installed 5.4.x thru Plesk panel)

 

[flaxton]

I have dozens of sites running on Amazon AWS across multiple Linux servers, all running Plesk 11. But I can't upgrade if Plesk 12 is broken.

 

[UFHH01]

Hi flaxton,

the standard apache2 and nginx configuration files ( please keep in mind, that the OS vendor packages are used! ) are located in the ".../sites-available" - folders" ( and depending ".../sites-enabled" - folders ). Plesk will only change these files, if you use nginx in front of apache2 or when you change apache2 - standards over the Plesk Control Panel. You could delete any standard apache2 ( and possible standard nginx configuration files ), when you added your first domain over Plesk - simply remove the symlinks at "sites-enabled/*".

 

[flaxton]

UFHH01,

I did a locate and neither "sites-enabled" or "sites-available" are found on the system, so I don't know what you mean there.

root@cloud03 vhosts]# updatedb
[root@cloud03 vhosts]# locate -i sites-available
[root@cloud03 vhosts]# locate -i sites-enabled
[root@cloud03 vhosts]#

 

[flaxton]

And I am using NGINX, just like I do on Plesk 11.

 

[UFHH01]

Hi flaxton,

please locate "default.conf" and "default-ssl.conf" for apache and "default" and "default-ssl" for nginx ( depending on your operating system, these files can have various locations ).

If you can't find these files, please post the directory listings from apache and nginx ( and it's folders ), for further investigations and probably include as well your apache2.conf ( httpd.conf ) and your nginx.conf.

 

[flaxton]

Neither of those exist:

root@cloud03 vhosts]# locate -i "default.conf"
/usr/share/alsa/pcm/default.conf
/usr/share/sw-collectd/postgresql_default.conf
[root@cloud03 vhosts]# locate -i "default-ssl.conf"
[root@cloud03 vhosts]#

the two "default.conf" are for alsa (sound) and postgres (DB), not Apache or NGINX.

Bear in mind, this is the Plesk 12 AMI image we are talking about here. This should all work out of the box.

I'll get the directory listings in a minute. Thank you for your help.

 

[flaxton]

OK, I did all of that, I hope it helps. I zipped it all up into a single file.

[root@cloud03 ~]# zip directories-and-conf.zip apache-directory.txt nginx-directory.txt httpd.conf nginx.conf
  adding: apache-directory.txt (deflated 81%)
  adding: nginx-directory.txt (deflated 81%)
  adding: httpd.conf (deflated 65%)
  adding: nginx.conf (deflated 50%)

I have not modified Apache or NGINX manually in any way.

 

[UFHH01]

Hi flaxton,

first of all, please keep in mind, that Plesk is not responsible for your vendor's images. If there are any misconfigurations or missing things, Plesk is not responsible for ir. Please consider to consult your vendor, if you think, that they should correct it, so that you might be able to work with your server and Plesk, as you expect "out-of-the-box-installations".
A far better way to install a server with a minimal installation, where you add needed services and packages on your very own ( mysql, apache, nginx, MTA ) and afterwards install Plesk ( and let Plesk configure the supported services ). With this procedure you can be sure, that there only will be existent configurations, which are supported by Plesk.

Now to some unconfigured things, or some misconfigurations:

httpd.conf:

#
# DocumentRoot: The directory out of which you will serve your
# documents. By default, all requests are taken from this directory, but
# symbolic links and aliases may be used to point to other locations.
#
DocumentRoot "/var/www/html"

As you can see, this standard configuration doesn't meet your current configuration.

#
# Note that from this point forward you must specifically allow
# particular features to be enabled - so if something's not working as
# you might expect, make sure that you have specifically enabled it
# below.
#

#
# This should be changed to whatever you set DocumentRoot to.
#
<Directory "/var/www/html">

Again, this standard configuration conflicts with your current configuration.

Include conf.d/*.conf

Please be aware that your linux server works with this structure on servers with Plesk 12: Virtual Host Structure (Linux) ( Online documentation Administrator's Guide, Plesk 12.0 )
The structure is different to Plesk 11, but Plesk for example will recognize that in case of upgrades to Plesk 12 and will correct depending configuration files.​

Unfortunately, I have to stop here with my investigations, because I couldn't inspect other configuration files from your server ( not included in your zip-file ) - but you now should have a starting hint, that you should investigate all of your configuration files, in order to find the root cause of your issue(s).


Apart from the discussion to possible micsonfigurations with a standard image from Amazon... is there any issue, problem, which you experience? Or is it just that you don't like the improper installation from the image - file? I can't reproduce

I add a brand new site, but my changes to the site web documents have no effect.

Please include errors from log - files and depending configuration files, if you would like investigations and solutions to solve issues/problems.

Odin / Parallels Plesk Panel for Linux services logs and configuration files ( KB - article: 111 283 )​

 

[flaxton]

What you're saying doesn't make sense to me.

First of all, the AMI I used comes directly from Parallels, Inc., now called Odin. So you make the AMI, but don't actually support it? You tell me it is broken? but Amazon doesn't make the AMI, Plesk does. So you guys installed CentOS, installed Plesk, and then created the AMI, and posted it on the Amazon marketplace.

Secondly, the main httpd.conf looks just like the one on my current, production, working Plesk 11 installations also on Amazon. Specifically, they both have DocumentRoot in the standard CentOS location, /var/www/html. But this is overridden in the included *.conf files for each site. So I don't understand why this is a problem, when it is working already and has all along. That is the function of the Includes, to override such settings, and Plesk takes advantage of this.

The whole reason I used the AMI is because you guys say the regular Plesk installer is not supported on Amazon, but to use the AMI instead. So now you're saying you created the AMI, but don't want me to use it?

Sure, I can use a generic Linux AMI, and then run the Plesk installer. I've done that many times. But it has trouble with the changing IP addresses on Cloud instances like Amazon. The Plesk AMI has additional scripts to automatically adjust this. Which again, is why I wanted to use it. And I was told to do this, not run the installer, when hosting on the Amazon cloud.

If so, give me the additional scripts to automatically adjust the IP address as needed, during startup.

Of my existing Plesk 11 instances on Amazon, some were installed from scratch on a generic Linux host, and then the Plesk installer run. Then later, for new servers, I instead used the Plesk 11 AMI, because of your recommendation and the IP address issue. Both types are working, although I have to mess with the IP addresses if the first type go down and the IP address changes.

So, which is it? Use your supplied Plesk 12 AMI, or install from scratch?

And if the Plesk 12 AMI (which includes CentOS 6.6) is bad, you should pull it down. You have some very negative reviews up there. Others are reporting the exact same issues as me was reported eight months ago, such as this review of the Plesk 12 AMI:

01/15/2015,
Poor, Creating Domain and All just go to default page
By Johnky Ng
Stop on :
Web Server's Default Page

This page is generated by Parallels Plesk, the leading hosting automation software. You see this page because there is no Web site at this address.
You can do the following:
Create domains and set up Web hosting using Parallels Plesk.

After creating the domain, and setup the DNS, and still stop on default page.
The pointing of the vhost is wrong.

which is what led me here in the first place.

Like I said, I tried the Plesk 12 AMI many months ago and ran into the same problem. It has been updated, so I thought, maybe the issue was fixed?

It doesn't look like it.

So, please fix the vhost problem with the Plesk 12 AMI, or remove the AMI and post the scripts to adjust the IP address. That is my recommendation.

 

[flaxton]

This is the KB article that outlines what I did:

How to deploy Plesk 12 on the Amazon EC2 service
http://kb.odin.com/en/122222

It specifically says to use the Plesk 12 AMI image, as the installer is not supported on Amazon.

I used the "Plesk 12 'Bring Your Own License'" AMI, which is one of the choices.

 

[UFHH01]

Hi flaxton,

eeehm... sorry... you got something wrong here... I'm not a Odin - Team - member. I am a normal customer as you are. If you wish to contact the OFFICIAL Odin Support, please visit: http://www.odin.com/support/

I was just trying to help you to solve any possible issue, but you don't really seem to want this kind of help.

 

[flaxton]

The sites-enabled directory is present on Ubuntu, not on CentOS. I trashed the server, used a clean Ubuntu 14 AMI image, ran the Plesk installer and see that directory now.

However, the site is still using the wrong (default) folder, not the one specified for the site.

I did verify the generated {site}.conf is being pulled in. I put a garbage line into it, and did apachectl configtest and it failed on the line I added. So I know it is being pulled in, just not sure where the problem lies.