In this article, you will learn how to install Plesk on CentOS 7 and how to activate the license on the web interface.

Plesk is a commercial web hosting and server data center automation software with a control panel developed for Linux and Windows-based retail hosting service providers. Plesk's user management model is suitable for dedicated and shared hosting, allowing server administrators to set up new websites, reseller accounts, email accounts, and edit and create DNS entries through a web-based interface. Key features and solutions include the automation and management of domain names, email accounts, web applications, programming languages, databases, and infrastructure tasks to provide a ready-to-code environment and strong security across all layers and operating systems.

Installation Guide

As a first step, it is required to install CentOS and in case there is already a CentOS 7 OS installed to proceed with a freshly re-installation.

Once the installation is finished, follow the instructions below :

Select EPEL repository and update the Operating System :

yum install epel-release screen wget
yum update

Create a firewall rule to allow port for Plesk's Installer :

firewall-cmd --zone=public --add-port=8447/tcp

After we allowed Plesk's port 8447 for installation to begin, we download the installation script and make it in exec format :

wget https://installer.plesk.com/plesk-installer && chmod +x ./plesk-installer

Once the package is downloaded, we run the installer on-screen and log in to Plesk's Web Interface to begin the installation :

./plesk-installer --web-interface

Log in with the root credentials in order to gain access to the web interface.

Select the icon Install or Upgrade Product and as a version to install should be the final stable version. If you wish to install older versions and the latest test version, you run on SSH or NoVNC the command :

./plesk-installer --web-interface --all-versions

On the web interface, to continue the installation, we leave the selection Installation Type: Recommended as is and to continue we click on Preview components selection.

The next step is to select additional components. We leave as is the default selections and we add the following :

Server Health Monitor

Plesk Migrator

SpamAssassin

ModSecurity

mod_bw

Plesk Firewall

Watchdog system monitoring

To initiate the installation procedure, we select continue and we wait until the installation is completed. Be cautious and not close the window with the web interface while the installation is in progress!

After the installation is completed, to access the Administrator Dashboard, you can access it with your server's IP address and on Plesk Port 8443, for example, https://YOUR_IP_ADDRESS:8443. On the window prompted as an email address, you preferred to use and the password should be the root password of the server.

Next step is to select Proceed with paid license and enter the Plesk License that you have purchased in order to enable it.

To enhance the security on your Plesk instance, you can follow the below steps while you are logged in to your Admin dashboard :

• To enable Mod_security with the Atomic Basic ModSecurity Rules, navigate to Tools & Settings / Security / Web Application Firewall (ModSecurity)
• To enable Plesk Firewall navigate to Tools & Settings / Security / Firewall, select Enable Firewall Rules Management, and no the next step select Enable
• To enable Let's Encrypt SSL for server's hostname and the emails navigate to Tools & Settings / Security / SSL/TLS Certificates / + Let's Encrypt

That's it! You have successfully installed Plesk on your Linux server and you may start using it!