how to install a plesk web server on CentOS 5.3

Tecnici

how to install a plesk web server on CentOS 5.3

admin
29 Luglio 2009
  1. Start the CentOS installer by booting from cd/dvd.
  2. For partitioning advice, I followed parallels suggestions
    We cannot give any exact numbers, however, you should take into account the following.Plesk for Linux OSes stores all users’ data in /var partition by default, so the partitioning should be like:
    SWAP → twice RAM size
    /boot → 128 MB
    / → System + Plesk, updates. 5-10 GB should be enough.
    /tmp → 1GB.
    /var → the rest of the space (domains, mail, backups, databases are stored there)

    Directories that usually take much disk space:/var/www/vhosts (/srv/vhosts on SuSE) - domains.
    /var/qmail - mail.
    /var/lib/mysql - Mysql databases.
    /var/lib/psa/dumps - Plesk clients'/domains' backups.
    /var/lib/pgsql/data - Postgres databases.
    /var/tomcat* - Tomcat applications.
    /var/lib/mailman - Mailman lists.

    Please check file /etc/psa/psa.conf for all other directories used by Plesk control panel.
    Plesk Control Panel under FreeBSD uses the /usr/local partition for storing large quantity of data and /var/db partition for databases.
    So the /usr and /var partitions have to be larger in this case.

  3. When prompted by the installer, I deselected all installation types.
  4. I entered my appropriate network config when prompted. In my case I specifified a static public IP and corresponding gateway and also a couple of know public dns server addresses, although depending on your needs/set-up, you might want/need to be using DHCP.
  5. After the installation has completed and you re-boot, upon first log-in you are presented with a network configuration utility; as I’d set my network up previously I didn’t need to do anything with this although there is also a security option which I did alter – by default there is a firewall configured to block most services including HTTP. I chose to switch this off totally at this point as I would be using Plesk to manage the firewall later on.
  6. Now I wanted to perform some system updates via Yum, however because CentOS uses bind in a chrooted set-up which doesn’t work well with Plesk, I did the following (after a previous attempt without this knowledge caused me big problems with Bind):
    • Edit /etc/yum.conf and, under the [main] section, add the line
      exclude=bind-chroot
    • Next, get rid of the currently installled bind-chroot package
      # rpm -e bind-chroot
    • Now we can use Yum to provide system updates [Please note, if you plan on using ARTs yum packages, which is a really good idea because you get updated Plesk compatible versions of both PHP and MySQL, do not add this channel to yum just yet, otherwise the Plesk installer won’t run until they’ve been removed!!].
      #yum check-update
      #yum update
  7. Now you’re system is up to date, you can go off and get and then run the Plesk auto-installer. To install Parallels Plesk Panel software on a server:
    1. Download the latest version of Parallels Products Installer that suits your operating system from http://www.parallels.com/en/download/plesk9/ and save it on your server’s hard drive.
    2. Change your working directory to the directory where the downloaded Parallels Products Installer is located.
    3. Set the execution permission for Parallels Products Installer:
      # chmod +x parallels_products_installer_file_name
    4. Run the following command in console:
      #export LANG=C
      #export LANG_ALL=C
    5. Run Parallels Products Installer:
      • To install Parallels Plesk Panel through the web interface of Parallels Products Installer, run the following command:
        # ./parallels_products_installer_file_name --web-interface
        Open your browser and enter https://hostname:8447/ or https://IP-address:8447/ in the address bar. The Parallels Product Installer web interface will open. Log in as root.
      • To install Parallels Plesk Panel through the command line interface of Parallels Products Installer, run the following command:
        # ./parallels_products_installer_file_name
    6. Follow the instructions presented on the screen to complete the installation. Refer to Parallels Plesk Panel Installation Guide available at http://download1.parallels.com/Plesk/Plesk9.2/Doc/en-US/plesk-9.2-unix-installation-guide/index.htm if you need detailed installation instructions.
    7. When the installation is finished, Parallels Plesk Panel will start automatically.