Question Plesk - possible to be used for DNS zone mgmt only?

[mike_tcis]

Server operating system version

Ubuntu 22.04.5 LTS

Plesk version and microupdate number

18.0.68

Hi,

Is it possible via panel.ini or some other method to "hide" all options within the Plesk UI that relate to website/mail hosting and only allow management of DNS zones? We are looking for a decent BIND front-end and Plesk seems to fit the bill, but we want to hide all the UI elements that would not be needed. We may use a master/slave config coupled with Route53 integration.

TIA.

 

[Kaspar]

That's a simple question, but a tough one to answer. I'd say it depends. There are a lot of options and features you can disable trough the Service Plans configurations, allowing you to run a very minimalistic UI. But even then your left with some the 'basics' options for each domain. So if your really only want to be able to access the DNS settings for each domain and absolutely noting else, you'll probably have get creative. For example by creating your own Plesk Extension to run custom CSS style to hide certain elements.

There is an example Plesk Extension available in forum thread you can use to use your own custom CSS code with Plesk that can get you started. If you want to get even more creative with your own custom Plesk Extension you probably want to check out the Extension documentation.

However, if you have a mixed use server on which some domains require access to all (or most) features, but some domains you only want to DNS manager (and nothing else), I suspect it's going to be very hard to accomplish this.

 

[nmdpa3]

You absolutely can do this. Just create a DNS plans in plesk with no hosting or email. The caveat however is, from the Plesk control panel, the customer will still see some options, but they can't do anything from those "non DNS" options (or very little because of your restrictions in the plans). See attached.

We use this technique for DNS only hosting in conjunction with the Slave DNS Manager pointing to our actual DNS servers.

 

[mike_tcis]

Great, thanks for confirming it can be done. Its those extra UI "bits" such as "Hosting" and "Mail" that I would like to hide from the user if at all possible.

You absolutely can do this. Just create a DNS plans in plesk with no hosting or email. The caveat however is, from the Plesk control panel, the customer will still see some options, but they can't do anything from those "non DNS" options (or very little because of your restrictions in the plans). See attached.

We use this technique for DNS only hosting in conjunction with the Slave DNS Manager pointing to our actual DNS servers.

 

[mike_tcis]

That's a simple question, but a tough one to answer. I'd say it depends. There are a lot of options and features you can disable trough the Service Plans configurations, allowing you to run a very minimalistic UI. But even then your left with some the 'basics' options for each domain. So if your really only want to be able to access the DNS settings for each domain and absolutely noting else, you'll probably have get creative. For example by creating your own Plesk Extension to run custom CSS style to hide certain elements.

There is an example Plesk Extension available in forum thread you can use to use your own custom CSS code with Plesk that canyou started. If you want to get even more creative with your own custom Plesk Extension you probably want to check out the Extension documentation.

However, if you have a mixed use server on which some domains require access to all (or most) features, but some domains you only want to DNS manager (and nothing else), I suspect it's going to be very hard to accomplish this.

Thanks for the tip on the CSS route. I may take a stab at it or hire a consultant to do it for us that may already be familiar with Plesk.