Whats new in 10.3?

[EdwardDekker]

Mobile Admin Template

Hi,

Sometimes i want to login with my cell phone into Plesk, always do i have some difficulties at the layout.

Into future do i want to see a mobile template of Plesk 10, integrated with the default template.
So that i can do quick and simple operations when i traveling.

Regards,
Edward

 

[Sergey L]

Thanks Brainwrap,

A few other gripes:

--Domain aliases are buried away; in 8.x, from the home screen, it's Domains > Control Panel > Domain Aliases. In 10.x, it's Domains > Control Panel > Websites & Domains > Show Advanced Operations > Domain Aliases.

Good point. We are working on moving them into common area and be more "integrated".

I'm not even sure what the point of having "Advanced Operations" and, similarly, "Show More Resources" in the Service Plans panels are needed for; why not just list things like domain aliases and web users in with the other fields? I know the idea is to declutter the interface of less-used stuff for users, but this also makes it too easy to completely forget that those options are even there, and requires an extra click every time we need to view that info (how about an "always open" option in the settings, if there isn't one there already?)

For "Advanced Operations" we'll be looking for a design showing controls in more "compact" form rather than completely hidden. That shall help not forget of these operations while yet not cluttering the screen.

For "Show more resources" the story is different - in Service Plan they mainly represent restrictions kept for compatibility purposes, they are seen as something very rare to change or very rarely required. Perhaps if open/close was remembered state (once open - always open until closed at another visit), it might have been less of a problem. If there in the hidden area any limit/permission you really need to see/tune frequently?

--I also don't like the way that Email aliases are handled. In 8.x, I could just click "Show Aliases", they'd all be listed in a nice neat column beneath the master accounts, and I could check off ones to delete. In 10.x, they're listed...but in a confusing comma-separated list, and you have to click a separate tab to edit them. Even then, you can only delete one at a time.

Well, in 10.x you click remove on each alias and then click OK, in 8.x you click checkbox for each alias and then click "Remove". It is the same number of clicks in both versions. Does the need to go to another tab brings so much inconvenience alone?

--The Migration Manager in 8.x would x-out/gray-out domains or clients that you'd already migrated over from a particular server; in 10.x it gives no indication of which ones you've already migrated, so you have to jot it down to remember.

Thanks. Will check whether it can be restored.

--In User Roles, for some reason "Accountant" is always included by default, and there's no way of deleting it even if there's no "Accountant"? For that matter, the whole "User Roles" function is rather confusing--I have contacts migrated over from 8.x who show up as both Mail users, Owners *and* Domain Administrators. I'm guessing a lot of this confusion is connected to the migration system trying to convert the old domains, but it's still confusing for me.

Do you mean a User is shown in several groups at the same time?

--In the Service Plan options (as well as other hosting editing options), the MB/GB/TB drop-downs seem to change randomly; I've had a few cases where I'm quite certain I set it to 400 MB, for instance, but when I save the setting it shows up as 400 GB. Going back into edit mode and changing this back fixes it, but it's still disturbing and annoying.

Strange, never noticed that. Will try to catch it and fix. Are you sure it cannot be a result of browser "autocomplete" tricks?

--I know that SiteBuilder can be set to zero, but I don't see how to make this completely, totally invisible to the end user in any way (or how to completely uninstall it, for that matter, in a way that makes no reference to it whatsoever).

Specifically - which references for Sitebuilder you see when it is set to zero? Screenshot will be very useful!

Thanks for all the feedback (both things you liked and didn't like). Surely improving the Plesk will continue.

Regards

 

[CCHickman]

I know this isn't troubleshooting, but upon installing for CentOS 5.6 64-Bit, I had two problems:

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<error><type>PleskFatalException</type><message>Components::componentUpdate() failed: Unable to exec utility packagemng: file does not exist or is not executable: /usr/local/psa/admin/bin/packagemng</message><file>/usr/local/psa/admin/auto_prepend/auth.php3</file><line>5$
</product-version></error>

So:
chmod g+x /usr/local/psa/admin/bin/packagemng

And then I copied all of the CSS and images from the theme to the directory before it (it's not looking in the right place)... and then I logged in and I'm stuck at:

2011-06-21 03:38:35: (mod_fastcgi.c.2588) FastCGI-stderr: PHP Fatal error: Call to a member function getParam() on a non-object in /usr/local/psa/admin/plib/skin/Skin.php on line 593

And as that's an encrypted PHP file... I'm stuck and cannot substitute this with a previous version.

PLESK 10.3 is broken on my end.

 

[Sergey L]

Hello, I would recommend a reinstall from the scratch. Some files look heavily corrupted or some RPM wasn't installed.

To troubleshoot it further we may need /tmp/autoinstaller3.log, I'll drop you a private message in this regard
It won't help to repair, but we can see what went wrong and prevent it for further installations

 

[CCHickman]

How can I reinstall from scratch? I've RPM -UVh --forced an install over itself.

I'm not exactly sure how to remove PLESK without losing data and reinstall it.

 

[Sergey L]

In case of corrupted installation the best would be to reinstall server completely. We recommend using virtualization solutions (VMware, Parallels Desktop, Parallels Virtuozzo) for trying previews, it makes reinstall operation very simple.

If reinstall isn't the option for you, you can try applying files from RPM w/o executing actual install/upgrade scripts (I guess it should be something like "--no-scripts"). It may fix missing files, but I wouldn't recommend trying that except for skilled administrator.

Regards

 

[Sergey L]

And BTW preview #3 is available. Just do another installation with the same autoinstaller script if already downloaded or download it from http://www.parallels.com/download/plesk10.3/

 

[CCHickman]

I will do that... in a few moments.

I'm swapping from qmail to postfix trying to figure out why NOTHING is ACK(nowledging) on my side...

After this is done, I will immediately install the preview #3. Thank you for the fast response.

 

[CCHickman]

It's saying that I already have the latest version... CentOS5.6 64-Bit.


Select the desired products and their versions
===============================================================================

The following product versions are available:

1. [*] Parallels Plesk Panel
2. (*) Parallels Plesk Panel 10.3.0 (currently installed)

And it goes through the process and says I have the current version..

 

[Sergey L]

You cannot upgrade from one preview build to another as they have the same version. Each new preview build needs to be installed from a scratch. If the upgrade is tested, the best would be to rollback virtual container to pre-upgrade state and do another upgrade.

Regards

 

[EgidijusS]

How about editing "Schet-Facturas"? Can we expect?

 

[Sergey L]

How about editing "Schet-Facturas"? Can we expect?

Currently you can only edit /var/lib/plesk-billing/invoice-factura/tpl/invoice-factura.phtml (but you'd need to backup your changes to prevent being lost during at next upgrade). In next version (the one after 10.3) we'll provide some means to tune it in UI

 

[CCHickman]

Sergey: I'm not using a Virtual Container of any sort. There is no option to download the files, just the autoinstaller.

If I would like to manually install the new Preview #3 to fix my broken Preview #2, how might I do that?

 

[Sergey L]

Manual install is too complicated to be explained step-by-step clearly. I can recommend to install Preview #3 from the scratch on another box and migrate your content there by means of Plesk Migration tool. Once you validate new installation works well, you can shut down the original one.

If you don't have another box, you can do a full server backup by means of Plesk Backup/Restore tool, do a HDD backup (this is still a preview, so you would need another layer of safety to rollback - at least you'll be able to restore your system as it were originally), reinstall server (fresh OS installation) and install Plesk again, then restore the backup.

If you still prefer to make manual install of newer Plesk build, do installation on the same OS, after installation find downloaded files in a directory you've launched installation from. If you are skilled in RPM system, you can install newer packages. The primary challenge would be to find a minimal subset of packages matching all dependencies.

Regards

 

[CCHickman]

Sergey - I cannot download preview 3. The only means I have to get it is using the autoinstaller. I do not have another box and honestly, the only thing preventing me from accessing plesk (that I know of) is Skins.php.

Is there a way that you (or someone else testing preview 3) could upload Skins.php?

If I had another box, using the preview 3 autoinstaller and then downloading the files there and copying them over would make perfect sense.

I may consider getting a VMWare Linux to do this with - that's not preferable as there should be an easier solution. But this just might work.

 

[Sergey L]

From the error message you posted I assume the problem isn't in Skins.php itself, but more likely in one of the library files it uses. I'll see whether a zip of Plesk web files can be done for you.

 

[CCHickman]

Awesome! I don't mind installing via RPM as I've done this many times before to either force things to fix themselves up (or just run the bootloader)

The error (again):
2011-06-21 03:38:35: (mod_fastcgi.c.2588) FastCGI-stderr: PHP Fatal error: Call to a member function getParam() on a non-object in /usr/local/psa/admin/plib/skin/Skin.php on line 593

I tried to see what would happen if I substituted an old version of this file, and I got a different error -- which was obviously going to happen as the release notes directly state that a lot of updates have gone into the Skins system allowing custom skins. In researching the error, it seems that the error just points to something being incorrectly coded (or I was wondering if a default skin didn't get chosen, thus resulting in a non-object)

 

[CiaroV]

PHP versions

Maybe a good idea for Plesk 10.3 to give the end user the option to choose between PHP 5.2 and PHP 5.3 (in favor of the deprecated 4 branch, which is no longer supported by PHP).

 

[Sergey L]

Maybe a good idea for Plesk 10.3 to give the end user the option to choose between PHP 5.2 and PHP 5.3 (in favor of the deprecated 4 branch, which is no longer supported by PHP).

Agree, good feature. We are considering it.
BTW, it should be available in Plesk for Windows.

Regards

 

[Sergey L]

AFAIK CentOS 6 isn't released yet. We expect it supported within few weeks once it is released.