New to Plesk

[ejdbroker]

Hello all. Ive been perusing threads and learning lots. I basically do my own hosting, from the bottom up, dns, servers and everything. Sadly, the servers are all old Cobalt RaQ's and my bandwidth provider is not as reliable as it should be. So I bought a box elsewhere to move the most important clients too (not to mention start phasing out my ancient Cobalts).

So im used to gui's and through the years can work with cobalts via terminal pretty well, but Plesk is pretty foreign to me.

First of all, i asked my provider what I should use for nameservers (as i want these sites to be autonomous from my current, unreliable setup). They gave me their info and charge me $1 per month per site to do DNS. Poking around, it seems like my plesk box should be able to be the primary nameserver for the sites on it. Is that correct? Can I save a couple bucks by doing DNS myself?

Secondly, my provider doesnt seem to have an option to add 4PSA's total domains package on (though im sure they will for a fee). Is there any way to alias a domain to a setup one. Cobalts made it real easy, but from the forums here it seems 4PSA is the only way, is that true?

Thanks for your help

 

[Who-m3]

First, let me be the first member of the Plesk Forums to welcome you to the Plesk Community. Now that we've gotten that out of the way...

1. Yes, you can operate your primary and/or secondary nameservers through plesk. You'll need to acquire a registered nameserver (most domain registrars have no problems helping you get a nameserver registered), then change the domain name servers listed for the domain to match that of yours. Of course, if you have more than on IP, this would allow you to have more than one nameserver for the site on the box. It is highly discouraged to do this, but when all the files are on the same box as the dns, if one is offline, both are offline. However, a free domain name service that may interest you is www.ZoneEdit.Com (yes, the do slaves too).

2. 4PSA Total Domains is a third party application. It's not directly affiliated with Plesk/SW-Soft. Although the add-on is available, it is not the only way to forward web-only traffic. If this is your goal, a simple fix would be to create vhost.conf (search is your friend) with the appropriate directives. If you want to have e-mail accounts for the second domain as well, I'd suggest setting up "Forwarding" website (add domain, on the "hosting type", go to "Forwarding").

Again, welcome to the community, and feel free to ask for help anytime.

 

[ejdbroker]

Thank you, quite helpful.

1. So if i made my plesk box the primary nameserver, where do i do the dns changes, within each site? Or is there an interface for the plesk server being a primary nameserver?

2. Sounds like I should look at vhost.conf as i am mostly proficient at command line stuff and can follow directions easily...

 

[Who-m3]

Each domain you add has the "DNS" menu from within the domain. This is where you'd set up the DNS records. Be aware: If you have the same records for all the domains you want, it'd be easiest to create the domain templates PRIOR to setting up the domain. However, if you make the template after, and would like to update to it, a simple "Set To Default" under the DNS portion of the domain would return it to the valid information/settings.

 

[jamesyeeoc]

Total Domains is nice since it is a GUI interface and when you 'park' a domain onto another existing one, it does not only the site pages, but also the email.


An easy alternative is to do the site forwarding using the Plesk CP (setup the new domain as a standard or frame forward) which will do a 'RedirectPermanent' in the /etc/httpd/conf/httpd.include file, then you just manually edit the one virtualdomains file and change the prefix number.

Manual changes are easy, but then you have to remember what you've done later on. The TD package 'remembers' for you and keeps the changes in a database.

 

[ejdbroker]

Yes, it seems the server is doing that on its own already, with a pretty good template...so i guess im pretty much set to go. So for each domain i put on plesk ill have to define the name server as unique to each domain:

domain.com's nameserver = ns1.domain.com

domain2.com's nameserver= ns1.domain2.com

right?

And another question...on my cobalts i have a self made perl script in use rather than the exploitable formmail.pl.....i keep it in a cgi directory that i allow the sites to use (global cgi directory). is that possible with plesk? or do i just do it in the back end on the server?

 

[Who-m3]

First, with the nameservers... Yes and No. If you want to have centralized nameservers, that'd be fine. If you want to go with the Domain-specific nameservers, you'll have to get each domains' nameserver registered on with the Nameserver Registration. It's possible, but I've chosen to go a slightly easier route. I put nameservers for each of my .com domains to match the nameservers set up for my company's .com, same for .net's, .us's, etc. It's a bit of extra work for me, but it keeps me in the green with dnsreport.com. Only yellows I've got nowadays are the MX (mail server records, only having one) and serial # (numeric for the time instead of based on the date and revision).

Probably lost you with that, sorry if I did.

As for the formmail. Yes/no. You can add it to your skeleton's section and each new domain will get it in their own cgi. Plesk is designed to completely separate everything one domain has from another. That's why they've got their own chroot'd environment for everything. CGI, Perl, Php, etc.. Each domain has it's own settings specific to it. For those domains you've already gotten, you'd have to copy the formmail to each account and chown it to the appropriate owner. (lots of work if it's not used for each domain)

 

[ejdbroker]

10-4 on the cgi...

And you didnt lose me on the DNS stuff...I have been doing it on my own for some time. So the way i thought, having a nameserver for each site, wouldnt be the best way, because id have to register each domain as a nameserver...yech.

Better way would be to put one of my biz's domains on the plesk box, and make that the name server. But from there there is no special setting in plesk to tell it that it is indeed a nameserver....just add the dns zones in the domain's dns panel?

 

[Who-m3]

Technically, you don't need to put your domain on the plesk box. If you have a stable, relaible setup now, the domain itself can be hosted anywhere. The nameservers would still need to be registered, of course, but that's an easy thing to do.

Beyond that, setting up Plesk's DNS shouldn't be too much trouble. If you don't have any custom records, I'd recommend setting up the template, then updating the dns records for each domain from the "default", which is in turn the template. This could save you a lot of typing if you have 4 nameservers on 30 domains. Likewise, it could be a waste for 2 nameservers on 3 domains with custom dns records.

One thing to definately be aware of is that Plesk manages DNS on the fly. Any records you insert manually to the DNS Records file (i.e. through console or webmin) will be removed the next time Plesk updates anything on the dns. An easy fix for this would be to insert the changes into the database (it supports most of the common protocols).

This is the only area that I wish SW-Soft would open some things up. Giving us more options when it comes to DNS, instead of limiting us to 5 or 6 record types... But that's my little rant for the night. Otherwise, everything should work out fine for you.

 

[ejdbroker]

If this is your goal, a simple fix would be to create vhost.conf (search is your friend) with the appropriate directives

I have been unable to find info regarding my situation. I realized that doing "forwarding" domains wouldnt be too great, as i have about 15 or so for 1 domain alone, which pretty much eats up my 30 license pack. Does anyone have any step by step or even general info on how to setup a vhost.conf file to point domainxyz.com, domainabc.com and domaingfh.com to domain.com on a plesk box?