Plesk installed - and now?

[manarak]

I have just installed Plesk on Fedora Core 2 on my home network.
The box just has one IP.

Now what should I do to make pages of the first client account accessible?

What irritates me, is that if I just use the IP, I get to the Sitebuilder installation ?

 

[phoenixisp]

Guess it's time to read the manual

http://download1.sw-soft.com/Plesk/Plesk7.5/Doc/plesk-7.5r-admins-guide-html/index.html

 

[manarak]

yeah it says everything about setting up domains, but I want to serve some pages without a domain, just to check if it works. I found nothing in the manual, or did I miss something?

 

[jamesyeeoc]

Brief procedure/overview, too tired to do details.

First, if your Plesk server is going to be the primary/secondary DNS server for that domain, then you will need to register your DNS server name(s) and IP address, again with a Registrar company.

Second, you register a domain name. The domain, of course, should be registered through a Registrar company (there are so many, but I use the more expensive Network Solutions, some use GoDaddy, Register.com, etc, etc, etc....) I do not endorse any of them, I leave it totally up to you to do your research on each and decide for yourself which one to use.

Third, you setup a Client in Plesk, then you add a domain to that client.

Fourth, build your web pages and upload them to the server.

Then once that is done, wait for the DNS for the nameserver(s) and domain to propagate around the world....

If you want to do something just as a strict limited demo, just for you and your 'client', then you could do the Third and Forth Steps, setup your workstation and client's workstation to use your Plesk server IP address as the Primary DNS server for Windows/Linux? and you should be able to 'browse' to the domain or IP address and see the web pages you created. Doing it this way, the domain will not be accessible by the rest of the world since the domain is not a registered domain on the internet.

Note: The third step also requires you to go through all the client and domain settings and make your appropriate selections.

If your internet connection does not have a static IP, then you will have to deal with that as a separate but related issue which involves dynamic DNS.

If you have your server behind a router/firewall, then you should search these forums for that topic and make sure you do your research (again) before beginning.

Buy/read a primer guidebook, read the Plesk documentation (all of it).

If all you have done is setup a client, that's fine. You should then proceed to the part about creating a domain above.

Additional note: if you are using the free download of Plesk, make sure you know what the limits of that version are.

 

[manarak]

Thank you for that explanation, it represents some work to write that!
But again domains, domains...

Is it possible to route the http requests coming directly to the IP address of the server to a client's webpages without setting up any IP???

Like when you just type in your browser the IP address of your Plesk Server, what do you see?

 

[jamesyeeoc]

I guess sometimes I get wordy when I get tired and cranky.

In Plesk, AFAIK, if you do not setup a domain and associate it with an IP address (Server, IP Address, Hosting, Set as default), then you will get a generic Plesk page.

You can setup a fictitious domain name, and set it as the default for the IP address as I outlined and Plesk will then be happy.

You will then only be able to access the 'domain' by browsing to the http://ipaddress and not by using the domain name (of course).

 

[manarak]

Thank you! that was what I needed to know!