Parallels Plesk Automation

Transcription

1 Parallels Plesk Automation

2 Copyright Notice Parallels IP Holdings GmbH Vordergasse 59 CH-Schaffhausen Switzerland Phone: Fax: Global Headquarters 500 SW 39 th Street, Suite 200 Renton, WA USA Phone: +1 (425) Fax: +1 (425) EMEA Sales Headquarters Willy-Brandt-Platz Munich, DE Phone: +49 (89) Fax:+49 (89) APAC Sales Headquarters 3 Anson Road, #36-01 Springleaf Tower, Singapore Phone: Copyright Parallels IP Holdings GmbH. All rights reserved. This product is protected by United States and international copyright laws. The product s underlying technology, patents, and trademarks are listed at Microsoft, Windows, Windows Server, Windows NT, Windows Vista, and MS-DOS are registered trademarks of Microsoft Corporation. Linux is a registered trademark of Linus Torvalds. Mac is a registered trademark of Apple, Inc. All other marks and names mentioned herein may be trademarks of their respective owners.

3 Contents What Is Parallels Plesk Automation 5 Management Node 8 Changing the IP Address of the Management Node... 9 Changing the Hostname of the Management Node Service Nodes 11 Configuring IP Pools Apache Web Server Nodes Optimizing Apache Mail Server Nodes Enabling Mail Submission Agent (Postfix Mail Server Nodes) Protection from Spam Protection from Viruses Mail Queue Database Server Nodes Adding More Roles to Service Nodes Propagating Changes in the Node's Operating System to PPA DNS 33 Using DNS Server Nodes Using External DNS Servers Managing DNS Zones Managing Reverse DNS Zones PPA Behind NAT 38 Configuring Mapping for Shared IP Addresses Configuring Mapping for Dedicated IP Addresses Updates and Upgrades 40 Backing Up Hosting Data 42 Customers and Resellers 43 Serving Customers Creating Shared Hosting Templates Creating Customer Accounts Subscribing Customers to Services Creating Custom Service Offers Employing Resellers Creating Reseller Service Templates... 53

4 What Is Parallels Plesk Automation 4 Creating Reseller Accounts Subscribing Resellers to Templates Administering PPA 55 User Access to PPA Securing PPA Protecting Access to PPA with SSL Changing Administrator's Password Managing Service Templates Managing Subscriptions Assigning a Dedicated IP Address to a Subscription Moving Subscriptions Between Nodes Install the PPA Moving Tools Configure the Tool Create a Transfer List Run the Transfer Selecting a Node for a Subscription Configuring Automatic Node Selection Forcing PPA to Provision Web Hosting and Database Services to the Same Node Managing Customer Accounts Managing Reseller Accounts Managing Staff Members Using Command-Line Utilities Changing Interface Language Adding and Customizing Administration Panel Locales Adding Custom Links to the Hosting Panel System Monitoring Managing Background Tasks Monitoring PPA Tracking Resource Usage Forcing PPA to Collect Usage Statistics Viewing Login History Notifications Configuring Administrator Notifications Configuring Customer and Reseller Notifications Handling Events Creating Actions Changing the Editing Mode Troubleshooting PPA Web Hosting Management 105 Appendix. Resource Types 106 Apache Webspace IIS Webspace Mail Service Database Service DNS hosting Subscription Diskspace Traffic IP Addresses / IPv6 Addresses Additional Staff Members

5 C H A P T E R 1 What Is Parallels Plesk Automation When a hosting company eventually grows, it employs more and more servers. If each server is managed separately, this entails big maintenance costs and suboptimal server loads. To help hosting providers solve these issues, we offer Parallels Plesk Automation (PPA). PPA is a hosting control panel where one central server (management node) controls an arbitrary number of other servers that have various roles - web, mail, DNS, and so on. In terms of PPA, these controlled servers are called service nodes. When a customer subscribes to a web hosting plan, PPA allocates all the necessary resources on service nodes and links these resources to the customer's account. For example, when a customer subscribes to a shared web hosting plan, PPA creates a webspace (virtual host) on one of the available web server nodes. If the subscription also includes mail services, PPA creates customer's mailboxes on one of the mail server nodes. The diagram below represents the PPA architecture.

6 6 What Is Parallels Plesk Automation

7 What Is Parallels Plesk Automation 7 The PPA User Interface The PPA UI consists of the following components: Administration Panel. Administrators use this panel to manage PPA infrastructure: add and configure service nodes, manage IP pools, and so on. This panel is based on Parallels Operations Automation. Hosting Panel. Customers use this panel to manage their hosting services: add domains and mailboxes, manage website content and so on. The panel is based on Parallels Plesk Panel. (Optional) Billing solution. Administrators and resellers can employ a billing solution to automate subscribing customers to hosting plans as well as to automate the monetization of this process. Currently, PPA supports the following solutions: Parallels Business Automation Standard. Web Host Manager Complete Solution (WHMCS). Any homegrown billing system integrated with Plesk Automation by means of API. Note: Administration and Hosting panels are hosted on the management node. Service nodes do not provide the UI.

8 C H A P T E R 2 Management Node Management node is a central server in the system that controls an arbitrary number of service nodes with various roles - web, mail, DNS, and other. Hosting Services Provided by the Management Node As well as service nodes, the management node is also able to provide hosting services. By default, these are: DNS. The node is the master DNS server for all zones created in PPA. Webmail. The node provides the webmail service for all mailboxes in PPA. You can also set up the management node to provide the following services: Apache web hosting. Postfix mail. MySQL database. To make the management node provide these services, assign it the corresponding provisioning attributes and mark the node as being ready to provide. You do not need to install any additional packages to the node! Note that, currently, Apache and Postfix settings are not shown on the management node's details page (Infrastructure > Service Nodes > select a node). To access them, you can follow this temporary workaround: 1. Log in to the Administration Panel (all other sessions with Plesk Automation from your IP address should be closed). 2. In the browser address bar, specify the address This step should be done twice. 3. Open the desired settings page. Important: We strongly recommend that you do not use the management node for providing any hosting services due to performance and security considerations. The best practice is to use the management node only to provide the GUI for PPA users. Learn more about the recommended PPA infrastructure configuration in the Deployment Guide. Next in this chapter we will provide instructions on management node configuration aspects.

9 Management Node 9 In this chapter: Changing the IP Address of the Management Node... 9 Changing the Hostname of the Management Node Changing the IP Address of the Management Node Sometimes, it may be necessary to move the management node to another IP address. If you simply change the address of the node, all main Plesk Automation services will stop working. This happens because all Plesk Automation services and service nodes are still configured to use the old IP address of the management node. To avoid such an issue after changing the address, use the ppa_ipaddress utility. The utility propagates the new IP address to all related Plesk Automation services and service nodes. To change the IP address of the management node: 1. Log in to your management node as root. 2. Change the management node's IP address in the operating system. For example, you can use the ifconfig system utility for this purpose. 3. Create the mapping file by running this command: ppa.ip_address <map_file> where <map_file> is the name of the mapping file. 4. Edit the mapping file. The file should contain the old and new IP addresses (both main and communication) of the management node. For example: # You should edit IP addresses, netmasks and interfaces to reflect your # future settings. If you don't want the IP address to be changed - leave it untouched or # comment out or remove a certain line from the file. Old main ip= New main ip= Old communication ip= New communication ip= Propagate the new IP address by running this command: ppa.ip_address <map_file> where <map_file> is the filename you specified in step 2.

10 10 Management Node Changing the Hostname of the Management Node Sometimes, it may be necessary to change the hostname of the management node. If you simply change the name, some Plesk Automation services may start to work improperly. To avoid such an issue after changing the address, use the ppa_hostname utility. The utility propagates the new hostname to all the related Plesk Automation services and service nodes. To change the hostname of the management node: 1. Log in to your management node as root. 2. Change the management node's hostname in the operating system. You can do this by editing the /etc/sysconfig/network file. 3. Run this utility: ppa.hostname --update

11 C H A P T E R 3 Service Nodes Service nodes are physical or virtual servers configured to carry out specific hosting tasks. The set of tasks performed by a node is defined by its role. Learn how to add service nodes to PPA in the Deployment Guide, section Adding Service Nodes. The administrator can assign the following roles to a server when registering it in PPA : Apache web server - a web server based on Apache HTTP Server. IIS web server - a web server based on Internet Information Services. Postfix Mail server - a mail server based on the Postfix mail transfer agent. SmarterMail mail server - a mail server based on the SmarterMail mail transfer agent. External mail server - an arbitrary external mail server. Webmail server - a dedicated webmail server based on the Horde and Atmail software. MySQL database server - a database server based on the MySQL database management system. PostgreSQL database server - a database server based on the PostgreSQL database management system.man Microsoft SQL database server - a database server based on the Microsoft SQL Server database management system. DNS server - a DNS server based on the Bind software. Backup server - an FTP server used as a centralized backup storage. In addition, PPA also supports a number of mixed roles. For example, one service node will be able to provide web and mail services at the same time. Note that you can extend the role of a service node at any time. For example, you can turn the node with the Apache web server role to the Apache web server / Postfix mail server node. Learn more in Extending Service Node Roles (on page 31). Server-Wide Settings of Service Nodes You can configure server-wide settings of services provided by registered nodes: Apache web server nodes. Switch off unused Apache modules to achieve better node performance. Learn more in the section Apache Web Server Nodes (on page 13). Mail server nodes. Change server-wide mail settings, such as black and white lists, spam filter threshold, and other settings. Learn more in the section Mail Server Nodes (on page 15).

12 12 Service Nodes Note: The Administration allows configuring of mail server settings only for Postfix mail server nodes. The configuration of SmarterMail mail server nodes should be performed manually by means of the SmarterMail software. Database server nodes. Manage existing databases through the web interface. Learn more in the section Database Server Nodes (on page 30). To change server-wide settings on a certain node, you should select the node in Infrastructure > Service Nodes and proceed to a certain settings tab. For example, to switch on/off Apache modules on a certain Apache web server node, you should go to the Apache Modules tab. Server-wide node settings affect all customers who use the node. For example, you may choose Atmail as a webmail software instead of Horde for one of your mail nodes. As a consequence, all customers whose mailboxes are located on this node will use Atmail, while customers whose mail services are provided by other nodes will continue to use Horde. The per-customer service configuration (like custom PHP configuration for customer's websites or the support for a particular scripting language) is performed by other means described in the chapter Customers and Resellers (on page 43). Next in this section, we will provide instructions on how to adjust server-wide settings on service nodes. In this chapter: Configuring IP Pools Apache Web Server Nodes Mail Server Nodes Database Server Nodes Adding More Roles to Service Nodes Propagating Changes in the Node's Operating System to PPA... 32

13 Service Nodes 13 Configuring IP Pools An IP pool is a set of available IP addresses that you are able to pass down to resellers and customers or utilize them within your own servers or services. IP addresses may be granted as either dedicated (exclusive), meaning that the target subscriber becomes the only owner of this address, or shared, meaning that this address is shared among many subscribers. To specify the IP addresses for a node, you should create an IP pool containing certain addresses and attach this pool to the node. Note that you can attach one IP pool to a number of nodes. When you add a service node to PPA, you are able to allocate only two IP addresses in the system: The management IP address (used for communication with a management node) and shared IP address. Therefore, by default, a node can provide services only from one shared IP address. All other addresses that exist on the node are marked as used and you will not be able to use them through IP pools for providing services. Thus, if you want to use the node for offering services (for example, web or mail hosting) with dedicated IP addresses, you must configure an IP pool. When a subscription that requires a dedicated IP address is allocated on the node, PPA automatically gets a free address from the pool and creates it on the node. To configure an IP pool for a service node: 1. Add an IP pool containing addresses you want to use in Infrastructure > IP Manager > IP Pools. 2. Attach the IP pool to a certain node on the Infrastructure > Service Nodes > select a node > Networking tab. Note: The addresses you declare for the pool are allowed to intersect with the ones that already exist on the node. These IP addresses will be marked as being used and unavailable for hosting provisioning. 3. (Optional. For Virtuozzo / OpenVZ-based service nodes only) PPA is unable to add IP addresses on Virtuozzo / OpenVZ containers automatically. Therefore, you should manually add all IP addresses from the pool to such nodes. Otherwise, the provisioning of subscriptions with dedicated addresses to such nodes will fail. You can add the address by using the vzctl utility on the hardware node that runs the container. For example, to add the address to the container with the 101 ID: vzctl set ipadd save Apache Web Server Nodes Next in this section: Optimizing Apache... 14

14 14 Service Nodes Optimizing Apache You can switch off the Apache web server modules that are not critical to hosting services in Infrastructure > Service Nodes > select a node > Apache Modules. This will allow you to reduce node resources consumption (for example, get the smaller RAM footprint) and, as a result, provide for more hosting customers on a node. Note that some modules are interdependent and can be switched off (on) only when the modules they depend on are off (on). For example, the cache module depends on disk_cache, file_cache, and mem_cache modules. This means that you cannot switch off the cache until its three dependent modules are off. Caution: This feature is for advanced users only. Toggle modules only if you completely understand the consequences of your actions. Note that some modifications may reduce Apache performance or even lead to it becoming inoperable. In addition, these changes may affect certain server functions. For example, if you turn off mod_perl or mod_php, the Perl and PHP scripts (including webmail) will stop working on websites. This may cause a situation in which you offer a feature that does not work in a service plan. The following Apache modules are always enabled: env auth_digest authn_file authz_host authz_user actions alias autoindex dav dir log_config mime negotiation setenvif ssl

15 Service Nodes 15 Mail Server Nodes After adding mail server nodes with Postfix, you can configure the mail service settings described in this section. Important: The Administration Panel does not support configuring of the mail service on SmarterMail mail server nodes. Such configuration should be done manually by means of the SmarterMail software. To view or configure the mail service settings: 1. Go to Infrastructure > Service Nodes > service node's hostname > Mail Server Settings tab. The server-wide mail preferences screen will open on the Settings tab. 2. Leave the Enable mail management functions in Panel checkbox selected if you want to allow your users to create mail accounts through the Hosting Panel and use the mail services provided by the Panelmanaged mail server. If you are using an external mail server, clear this checkbox. 3. If you want to limit the size of an message that can be sent through your server, type the desired value in kilobytes into the Maximum message size box. Otherwise, leave this field blank. 4. To protect your server against unauthorized mail relaying or injection of unsolicited bulk mail, select the Enable message submission checkbox to allow your customers to send messages through the port 587. Also notify your customers that they need to specify in their programs' settings the port 587 for outgoing SMTP connections, and be sure to allow connections to this port in your firewall settings. 5. Select the mail relay mode. With closed relay the mail server will accept only addressed to the users who have mailboxes on this server. Your customers will not be able to send any mail through your outgoing SMTP server, therefore, we do not recommend closing mail relay. With relay after authorization, only your customers will be able to receive and send through your mail server. We recommend that you leave the authorization is required option selected, and specify allowed authentication methods: POP3 lock time. With POP3 authorization, once a user has successfully authenticated to the POP server, he or she is permitted to receive and send e- mail through the mail server for the specified period of time. SMTP. With SMTP authorization, your mail server requires authorization if the e- mail message must be sent to an external address. 6. Select the antivirus program that should be used on the server. 7. Select the spam protection options that should be used on the server.

16 16 Service Nodes Note: If you wish to set up spam protection systems, such as SpamAssassin spam filter, or protection systems based on DNS blackhole lists or Sender Policy Framework (SPF), proceed to the section Protection from Spam (on page 23). Next in this section: Enabling Mail Submission Agent (Postfix Mail Server Nodes) Protection from Spam Protection from Viruses Mail Queue... 29

17 Service Nodes 17 Enabling Mail Submission Agent (Postfix Mail Server Nodes) A mail submission agent (MSA) is a software agent that receives messages from a mail user agent (MUA) and cooperates with a mail transfer agent (MTA) for delivery of the mail. Using MSA between MUA and MTA gives you a number of benefits, such as protection from unauthorized mail relaying, protection from injection of unsolicited bulk mail, and other. Learn more about MSA at If you enable MSA, you must notify your customers that they need to adjust mail clients' settings. More specifically, they should change the port of the outgoing SMTP server to 587 and turn on the TLS encrypted connections. You can find an example of instructions for your customers in Adjusting Mail Client Settings (on page 18). Note: MSA is currently supported on Postfix mail server nodes only. To enable mail submission agent on a certain Postfix mail server node: 1. Log in to PPA. 2. Go to the Infrastructure > Service Nodes > select the node > Mail Server Settings tab. 3. Select Enable message submission. Replacing the Default Postfix SSL Certificate The MSA employs the TLS protocol to secure connections between MUAs and the MTA. The default Postfix SSL certificate is used for encryption purposes. To replace the default certificate with the one from a trusted certificate authority: 1. Log in to your Postfix service node as root. 2. Save the default Postfix SSL certificate: cd /etc/postfix cp postfix_default.pem postfix_default.pem.orig 3. Replace the default certificate with the new one: cp ~/you_cert.pem postfix_default.pem 4. Restart Postfix: service postfix restart 5. Check that Postfix uses your new certificate. This can be done, for example, by sending a sample message. Next in this section: Adjusting Mail Client Settings... 18

18 18 Service Nodes Adjusting Mail Client Settings Enabling mail submission agent on a mail service node requires customers who use the node to adjust their mail client's settings. More specifically, they should change the port of the outgoing SMTP server to 587 and turn on the TLS encrypted connections. Here is an example of how your customers must configure the Microsoft Outlook mail client. To configure Microsoft Outlook for working with MSA: 1. Open Microsoft Office Outlook. 2. Go to File > Info > Account Settings.

19 3. Select your account and click Change... Service Nodes 19

20 20 Service Nodes 4. Click More Settings...

21 Service Nodes Open the Outgoing Server tab and check My outgoing server (SMTP) requires authentication.

22 22 Service Nodes 6. Open the Advanced tab, and specify 587 for the Outgoing server (SMTP). In Use the following type of encrypted connection, set the TLS value. 7. Click OK, click Next. If the connection test is finished successfully, click Finish.

23 Service Nodes 23 Protection from Spam To protect your users from spam, you can use the following tools with your Panel: SpamAssassin spam filter. It is a powerful spam filter that uses a wide variety of local and network tests to identify spam signatures. You can configure the spam filter so as to either delete suspicious messages when they come to your mail server, or change the subject line and add "X-Spam-Flag: YES" and "X-Spam-Status: Yes" headers to the messages. The latter can be useful for users who prefer to filter mail with mail filtering programs installed on their own computers. To learn more about SpamAssassin, visit To configure and switch on the SpamAssassin filter, proceed to the section SpamAssassin Spam Filter (on page 24). DNS blackhole lists. This spam prevention system is based on DNS queries made by your mail server to a database, which contains known and documented sources of spam, as well as an extensive listing of dynamic IP addresses. Any positive response from this database should result in your mail server returning a '550' error, or rejection of the requested connection. To configure your mail server for working with DNSBL databases, proceed to the section DNS Blackhole Lists. Sender Policy Framework. This spam prevention system is also DNS query-based. It is designed to reduce the amount of spam sent from forged addresses. With SPF, an Internet domain owner can specify the addresses of machines that are authorized to send for users of his or her domain. Receivers that implement SPF then treat as suspect any that claims to come from that domain but fails to come from locations that domain authorizes. To learn more about SPF, visit To enable filtering based on SPF, proceed to the section Sender Policy Framework System (Linux). Server-wide black and white lists. Black and white lists are standard mail server facilities. You can use black and white lists to block or receive mail from specific servers. Your mail server retrieves domain names and IP addresses of servers which attempt to establish connection with it. If a domain name is matched against black list entries, your server refuses the connection. Thus, the potential spam message will be never received. If an IP address is matched against white list entries, your server receives a message from the sender without using the spam protection systems such as sender authentication, greylisting, or DNSBL. To set up server-wide black and white lists, proceed to the section Server-wide Black and White Lists. Next in this section: SpamAssassin Spam Filter DNS Blackhole Lists Server-wide Black and White Lists Sender Policy Framework System... 27

24 24 Service Nodes SpamAssassin Spam Filter To switch on SpamAssassin spam filter: 1. Go to Infrastructure > Service Nodes > select a node > Mail Server Settings tab. 2. To allow server wide filtering based on the settings you define, select the Switch on server-wide SpamAssassin spam filtering checkbox. 3. To let your users set their own spam filtering preferences on a permailbox basis, select the Apply individual settings to spam filtering checkbox. 4. If you wish to adjust the amount of system resources the spam filter should use (available only for Linux hosting), type the desired value from 1 to 5 into the Maximum number of worker spamd processes to run (1-5) box (1 is the lowest load, and 5 is the highest). We recommend that you use the default value. 5. If you wish to adjust the spam filter's sensitivity, type the desired value in the The number of points a message must score to be considered spam box. SpamAssassin performs a number of different tests on contents and subject line of each message. As a result, each message scores a number of points. The higher the number, the more likely a message is spam. For example, a message containing the text string BUY VIAGRA AT LOW PRICE!!! in Subject line and message body scores 8.3 points. By default, the filter sensitivity is set so that all messages that score 7 or more points are classified as spam. When your users receive lots of spam messages with the current setting, to make filter more sensitive, try setting a lesser value in the The score that a message must receive to qualify as spam box; for example, 6. When your users are missing s because your spam filter thinks they are junk, try reducing filter sensitivity by setting a higher value in the The score that a message must receive to qualify as spam box. 6. Specify how to mark messages recognized as spam. At the server level, you cannot set the server-wide spam filter to automatically delete spam: you can do it only on a per-mailbox basis. So, for the server-wide policy, you can choose only marking messages as spam: X-Spam-Flag: YES and X-Spam-Status: Yes headers are added to the message source by default, and if you want, the spam filter will additionally include a specific text string to the beginning of Subject line. To include a desired combination of symbols or words to the message subject, type it into the Add the following text to the beginning of subject of each message recognized as spam box. If you do not want the spam filter to modify message subject, leave this box blank. If you want to include into the subject line the number of points that messages score, type SCORE in this box. 7. If you do not want your users to receive from specific domains or individual senders, click the Black List tab, and then add the respective entries to the spam filter s black list:

25 Service Nodes 25 To add entries to the black list, click Add Addresses. Separate addresses with a coma, a colon, or a white space. You can use an asterisk (*) as a substitute for a number of letters, and question mark (?) as a substitute for a single letter. For example: address@spammers.net, user?@spammers.net, *@spammers.net. Specifying *@spammers.net will block the entire mail domain spammers.net. If you use a Windows-based server, also specify what to do with messages coming from the specified addresses. To save the entries you added, click OK. To remove entries from the black list, under the Black List tab, select the entries and click Remove. Confirm removal and click OK. 8. If you want to be sure that you and your users will not miss from specific senders, click the White List tab, and then add addresses or entire domains to the spam filter s white list: To add entries to the white list, click Add Addresses. If you have a list of entries stored in a file, click Browse to specify it, and then click OK. Otherwise, select the From List option, and type the addresses into the addresses box. Place each address in one row, or separate addresses with a coma, a colon, or a white space. You can use an asterisk (*) as a substitute for a number of letters, and question mark (?) as a substitute for a single letter. For example: address@mycompany.com, user?@mycompany.com, *@mycompany.com. Specifying *@mycompany.com will add to the white list all addresses that are under the mycompany.com mail domain. To save the entries you added, click OK, then confirm adding, and click OK again. To remove entries from the white list, under the White List tab, select the entries and click Remove. Confirm removal and click OK. 9. Once finished with setting up the spam filter, click OK. Now all the incoming mail will be filtered on the server side. By default, spam filter does not delete spam mail, it only adds the "X-Spam-Flag: YES" and "X-Spam- Status: Yes" headers to the message, and "*****SPAM*****" text string to the beginning of Subject line of each message recognized as spam. If you have enabled the Apply individual settings to spam filtering option, then your users will be able to set their spam filters so as to automatically delete junk mail. They will also be able to set up their personal black and white lists of correspondents that will override the server settings, and teach the spam filter on a per-mailbox basis. DNS Blackhole Lists You can use free and paid subscription blackhole lists with your server. To switch on spam protection based on DNSBL: 1. Go to Infrastructure > Service Nodes > select a node > Mail Server Settings tab. 2. Select the Switch on spam protection based on DNS blackhole lists checkbox. 3. In the DNS zones for DNSBL service input box, specify the host name that your mail server should query, for example: sbl.spamhaus.org. Now, messages from known spammers should be rejected with an error code 550 (connection refused).

26 26 Service Nodes Server-wide Black and White Lists To reject connections from specific mail servers: 1. Go to Infrastructure > Service Nodes > select a node > Mail Server Settings tab > Black List tab. 2. Click Add Domain. 3. Specify the name of the domain from which you do not want to receive . For example, 'evilspammers.net'. 4. Click OK. 5. Repeat steps from 2 to 4 to add as many domains as required. To assure mail reception from specific servers or networks: 1. Go to Infrastructure > Service Nodes > service node's hostname > Mail Server Settings tab > White List tab. 2. Click Add Network. 3. Specify an IP address or range of IP addresses from which mail must always be accepted. 4. Click OK. 5. Repeat steps from 2 to 4 to add as many addresses as required.

27 Service Nodes 27 Sender Policy Framework System To set up support for Sender Policy Framework: 1. Go to Infrastructure > Service Nodes > select a node > Mail Server Settings tab. The server-wide mail preferences screen will open on the Settings tab. 2. Select the Switch on SPF spam protection checkbox and specify how to deal with To accept all incoming messages regardless of SPF check results, select the Create only Received SPF-headers, never block option from the SPF checking mode drop-down box. This option is recommended. To accept all incoming messages regardless of SPF check results, even if SPF check failed due to DNS lookup problems, select the In case of DNS lookup problems, generate temporary errors option from the SPF checking mode drop-down box. To reject messages from senders who are not authorized to use the domain in question, select the option Reject mail if SPF resolves to fail from the SPF checking mode drop-down box. To reject the messages that are most likely from senders who are not authorized to use the domain in question, select the option Reject mail if SPF resolves to softfail from the SPF checking mode drop-down box. To reject the messages from senders who cannot be identified by SPF system as authorized or not authorized because the domain has no SPF records published, select the option Reject mail if SPF resolves to neutral from the SPF checking mode drop-down box. To reject the messages that do not pass SPF check for any reason (for example, when sender's domain does not implement SPF and SPF checking returns the "unknown" status), select the option Reject mail if SPF does not resolve to pass from the SPF checking mode drop-down box. 3. To specify additional rules that are applied by the spam filter before the SPF check is actually done by the mail server, type the rules you need in the SPF local rules box. We recommend that you add a rule for checking messages against the open database of trusted senders, for example, 'include:spf.trusted-forwarder.org'. For more information on SPF rules, visit 4. To specify the rules that are applied to domains that do not publish SPF records, type the rules into the SPF guess rules box. For example: v=spf1 +a/24 +mx/24 +ptr?all 5. To specify an arbitrary error notice that is returned to the SMTP sender when a message is rejected, type it into the SPF explanation text box. If no value is specified, the default text will be used as a notification.

28 28 Service Nodes Protection from Viruses To provide your users with anti-virus protection, you can use Parallels Premium Antivirus, which is installed by default on mail service nodes. The antivirus requires an additional license key with annual renewal. Check the current prices with your provider or visit the Parallels website. After installing a license key for the antivirus, it starts checking all incoming mail and moves all suspicious and infected messages to the quarantine directory located at /var/drweb/infected. To switch on Parallels Premium Antivirus: 1. Go to Infrastructure > Service Nodes > select a node > Mail Server Settings tab > Settings tab. 2. Under the Antivirus Settings group, select the option Parallels Premium antivirus.

29 Service Nodes 29 Mail Queue If your customers complain that they cannot send through the mail server, this can mean that the mail server is overloaded and cannot cope with the amount of received messages. This can happen when somebody is sending spam through the mail server, or the daemon responsible for sending mail is down. To return the mail server to an operable state, delete the unwanted messages from the mail server s message queue. To see the messages in the message queue and to delete them: 1. Go to Infrastructure > Service Nodes > select a node > Mail Server Settings tab > Mail Queue tab. The following information will be presented: Total number of undelivered messages. When messages come to your mail server, they are first added to the main queue. Then, the mail server preprocesses them in order to find out whether they should be delivered to a local account on the same server or sent further to a remote recipient s e- mail address. After preprocessing, the messages directed at local mail recipients are put to a local queue, and the messages directed at remote recipients are put to a remote queue. Once delivered, the messages are removed from the queues. Message properties: subject, sender, recipient, queue type (local, remote, not preprocessed), date the message was sent from user s computer, the time lapsed since the moment when message was put to queue (age), and message size. 2. To find a message with specific subject, select the queue in the Queues drop-down box, type the desired combination of symbols into the Subject box, and click Search. The messages matching your search criteria will be listed at the bottom of the screen. To reset the filter, click Show All. 3. To find a message from a specific sender, click the Show Advanced link, type the sender s address into the Envelope Sender box, and click Search. The messages matching your search criteria will be listed at the bottom of the screen. To reset the filter, click Show All. 4. To find a message addressed to a specific recipient, click the Show Advanced link, type the recipient's address into the Recipients box, and click Search. The messages matching your search criteria will be listed at the bottom of the screen. To reset the filter, click Show All. 5. To find a message by date, age, or size, click the Show Advanced link, type the required values into the Date, Age, or Size boxes, respectively, and click Search. The messages matching your search criteria will be listed at the bottom of the screen. To reset the filter, click Show All.

30 30 Service Nodes 6. To delete a message from the queue, select the corresponding checkbox and click Remove. To delete all messages from the queue, select the checkbox in the upper-right corner of the messages list, and click Remove. Database Server Nodes In addition to adding service nodes with automatic deployment of the necessary software components through the Infrastructure > Service Nodes > Add New Node wizard, you can configure PPA to use existing MySQL, PostgreSQL, or Microsoft SQL Serverbased database servers. Note: To be able to register Microsoft SQL Server-based database servers, you should have at least one IIS web server node registered in PPA. To register a database server with PPA: 1. Run Infrastructure > Database Servers > Add Database Server. 2. Specify the properties of the database server: Hostname or IP address. Port number the database server is listening on. This option is available only for MySQL. By default, MySQL servers listen on port You can leave the Port number box blank, if your MySQL database server is listening on the default port. Database server engine. Database server administrator's username and password. To change the host name, IP address, port, or database server administrator's credentials: Go to Infrastructure > Database Servers > database server's host name or IP address. To manage databases through the DB Webadmin tool: Go to Infrastructure > Database Servers, and click the icon.

31 Service Nodes 31 Adding More Roles to Service Nodes Sometimes, it may be necessary to extend the role of a service node. For example, it may be necessary if you add the Apache web server node, but then (as your company grows) decide that it must also provide mail services. In this case, all you need to do is install the ppa_postfix package to the node. After you add the package, Plesk Automation will change the node's role to Apache web server / Postfix mail server and assign it the corresponding attributes. The following is a list of all packages that you can install. ppa_apache - Apache HTTP server ppa_postfix - Postfix mail server ppa_pgsql - PostgreSQL database server ppa_mysql - MySQL database server ppa_webmail - Horde and Atmail webmail server To extend a node role by installing additional packages: 1. Go to Infrastructure > Service Nodes > (select a node) > Packages tab > Install Package. 2. In the Name input box, type ppa and click Search. All packages that you can install will be listed. 3. Click the icon next to the package you want to install. 4. Click the icon. 5. Specify the installation settings, such as the installation paths, administrator's username and password, and other settings that may be required by the application. 6. Click Submit, and on the next step, click Finish.

32 32 Service Nodes Propagating Changes in the Node's Operating System to PPA Sometimes, it may be necessary to make changes in the operating system of a certain service node (for example, install new software). In such a case, Plesk Automation must be warned about these changes, otherwise, the node may start function improperly. For example, if you install Microsoft.NET Framework 4 on the node and do not propagate this change to Plesk Automation, the provisioning of subscriptions with support for.net will fail on this node. Another example when changes must be propagated is enabling hard disk quota on a Virtuozzo container. To propagate changes in the node's operating system to Plesk Automation: On the Infrastructure > Service Nodes > select the node > Summary tab, click the Refresh button (in the User-installed packages group).

33 C H A P T E R 4 DNS By default, DNS services are provided by the management node. It acts as a master DNS server for all zones registered in the system. Setup of DNS zones for newly added domains is automated: When a customer adds a new domain in the Hosting Panel, PPA automatically generates its zone file and registers it in the nameserver's database. You can view the list of domains registered in the system in Operations > DNS Manager > Domains. Learn how to manage DNS zone records of particular domains in the section Managing DNS Zones (on page 35). The reverse lookup process is based on reverse DNS zones. Learn how to work with them in the section Managing Reverse DNS Zones (on page 37). The functions of a master DNS server can be delegated to any node with the DNS Server role. To improve DNS reliability, you may also add slave DNS server nodes (slave servers periodically load zone data from the master server) or even more master DNS server nodes. In the latter case, PPA will create and update same zone files on all master servers. Learn how to use DNS server nodes in the section Using DNS Server Nodes (on page 35). In addition, you can register external DNS servers (the servers which are not a part of your PPA infrastructure) in PPA. PPA is unable to create or update zone files on such servers. Thus, this should be done by some external system notified by PPA about required changes. Learn how to use external DNS servers in the section Using External DNS Servers (on page 35). You can view the full list of DNS servers used by PPA in Operations > DNS Manager > Nameservers. How DNS Works in PPA The set of services that you are able to offer to your customers is defined by resources (also called resource types) registered in the system. For example, every customer should have an IP address for accessing their websites, therefore, they should be provided with the IP Address resource. Resources should be configured to meet the needs of certain customers. Thus, for the IP Address resource you can specify the address type: IPv4 or IPv6, shared or dedicated. The DNS service is provided to your customers with the DNS resource. This resource type defines which of the registered DNS server nodes (up to three different nodes) should be used as master or slave servers for customer zones. In addition, with the help of DNS resource settings you can specify the SOA record parameters: refresh and retry intervals, expiration period, and minimum TTL. Note that, by default, all of your customers use the same DNS resource. Therefore, all of them have the same DNS configuration. For example, you cannot have a separate DNS server node which stores zones of a specific customer only.

34 34 DNS Note: To work around the restriction of having a single DNS configuration, replace the DNS resource type in your offerings with custom resource types based on the DNS Hosting resource class. In this chapter: Using DNS Server Nodes Using External DNS Servers Managing DNS Zones Managing Reverse DNS Zones... 37

35 DNS 35 Using DNS Server Nodes To use a separate service node as a master or slave DNS server: 1. Add the node to PPA by running the wizard Infrastructure > Service Nodes > Add New Node in the Administration Panel. During the node registration, specify the DNS Server role (or one of the combined roles which include the DNS service). For the detailed instructions on how to add DNS server nodes to PPA, refer to the Parallels Plesk Automation: Deployment Guide, section Adding DNS Server Nodes. Once you add the node, it appears in the list of registered PPA nameservers, which is available at Operations > DNS Manager > Nameservers. 2. Set this node as a master or slave nameserver in the DNS resource type properties located at the Products > Resource Types > DNS > Activation Parameters tab. In addition, you can set the SOA record template parameters: refresh and retry intervals, expiration period, and minimum TTL. The template settings are applied to the SOA record of all zones but can be overridden for a specific zone. Learn how to do this in the section Managing DNS Zones (on page 35). Note: You can set up to three nameservers in the DNS resource type properties. The first nameserver is always master (by default, this is the management node). Using External DNS Servers To serve zones by an external DNS server which is not a part of PPA: 1. Register your external DNS server in PPA by running the wizard Operations > DNS Manager > Nameservers > Register External Nameserver in the Administration Panel. The wizard will prompt you to enter a server's hostname and IP address. 2. Set this server as a master or slave nameserver in the DNS resource type properties located at the Products > Resource Types > DNS > Activation Parameters tab. Note: PPA is unable to make changes in zone files on external nameservers. This should be done by an external system that is notified by PPA about required changes in zone records. This can be organized by means of event handlers. Learn more in the section Handling Events (on page 99). Managing DNS Zones PPA allows you to manage a DNS zone of any domain registered in the system. More specifically, you can: Add new records and edit the existing ones. Modify the SOA record of a zone.

36 36 DNS Switch the DNS service off for a domain in case a customer uses their own external DNS server. Modifying DNS Records To add new records or edit the existing ones for a domain: 1. Select the domain in the Operations > DNS Manager > Domains. 2. Select an existing record in DNS > DNS Records to modify it or add a new one. Note: When a customer registers a new domain in the system, PPA creates the corresponding zone file. This file contains the set of predefined DNS records which you are unable to modify or remove. Nevertheless, if the record modification is required, you can disable the record (on the record properties page) and add a new one containing the required changes. Modifying the SOA Record To override the SOA record settings defined by the SOA template for a certain zone: 1. Select a domain in the Operations > DNS Manager > Domains. 2. Modify the SOA record for the domain zone in DNS > Zone Settings. Switching the DNS Service Off for a Domain If a customer wants to use their own DNS server for a domain, you should switch PPA's DNS service off for this domain. To do this, complete the following steps: 1. Select the domain in the Operations > DNS Manager > Domains. 2. On the DNS tab, click the Change DNS Hosting to External button. Once you complete these steps, PPA will remove the zone file from registered DNS servers.

37 DNS 37 Managing Reverse DNS Zones A reverse DNS lookup process (when a client looks up a computer name based on its address) is essential to a large number of Internet services. The processing of reverse requests is based on reverse DNS zones that store the information about IP addresses and corresponding domain names in the form of PTR records. PPA does not automatically create reverse DNS zones for the registered IP network addresses. Therefore, if you need reverse lookup for hosted domains, you should manually create reverse DNS zones for all of your IP network addresses in Operations > DNS Manager > Reverse DNS Zones. Once a reverse DNS zone is created for a certain network, PPA will automatically add to it corresponding PTR records for all newly created domains. In addition, you can add new PTR records and temporarily disable the existing ones in each reverse zone. Creating Reverse DNS Zones To add new reverse DNS zone, run the Add new reverse zone wizard in Operations > DNS Manager > Reverse DNS Zones. When creating a zone you will be prompted to provide an IP address of a network for which you create a zone and a nameserver that should store zone files. Managing PTR Records To manage PTR records of a certain zone, first select this zone in Operations > DNS Manager > Reverse DNS Zones. Here you can: Add new PTR records with Add new PTR record. Temporarily disable / enable PTR records (select a record > Disable or Enable). PPA temporarily removes disabled records from zone files. Remove PTR records (select a record > Remove).

38 C H A P T E R 5 PPA Behind NAT Network address translation (NAT) is the process of translating IP addresses used within one network into different IP addresses known within another network. The translation, performed by routing devices, provides an additional level of security for hosts in an internal network and helps to reduce the number of public IPv4 addresses required for operation. To run PPA behind NAT, do the following: 1. Configure IP pools to use private IP addresses, as described in Configuring IP Pools (on page 13). 2. Configure network address translation on the router. 3. Map private IP addresses to public addresses in PPA (in Administration Panel > Infrastructure > IP Manager > IP Translations). The mapping should be exactly the same as on your router. If the mapping is not performed, the records in the DNS zones of websites will use private IP addresses instead of the public addresses, and DNS resolving will not work. The mapping of shared and dedicated IP addresses is performed in a slightly different manner. Learn more about this in the following sections. Important: Network address translation is not supported for IPv6 addresses. In this chapter: Configuring Mapping for Shared IP Addresses Configuring Mapping for Dedicated IP Addresses... 39

39 PPA Behind NAT 39 Configuring Mapping for Shared IP Addresses To map IP addresses on your internal network to shared public IP addresses, do the following: 1. Go to Administration Panel > Infrastructure > IP Manager > IP Translations. 2. Click Add New IP translation. 3. Specify the following: PublicNet IP. The public network IP address. FrontNet IP. The private network IP address used by PPA service nodes to accept requests. Description. Here you can specify a description for the record. Port Forwarding. Leave the default value because this setting does not affect the address translation. 4. Click Submit. Configuring Mapping for Dedicated IP Addresses To map IP addresses on your internal network to dedicated public IP addresses, do the following: 1. Go to Administration Panel > Infrastructure > IP Manager > IP Translations > IP Translation Rules tab > Add New IP Translation Rule. 2. Specify the following settings: PublicNet IP Range - the range of public IP addresses used by the NAT router. FrontNet IP Range - the range of private IP addresses used by PPA nodes. 3. Click Submit.

40 C H A P T E R 6 Updates and Upgrades The full PPA version identifier consists of a number of fields. For example, the identifier PPA 11.1 Update #08 appears as follows. Version number Update Major Major

41 Updates and Upgrades 41 Updates include some minor enhancements and change only the number that goes after the Update prefix. Upgrades introduce more complex changes in product functionality and increase the PPA major version numbers. Plesk Automation is updated and upgraded using the special ppa_update utility which is a part of the Plesk Automation distribution. To apply available PPA updates: 1. Log in to the management node as root. 2. Check for available updates:./ppa_update --check-updates The information about available updates is also available on the home page of the Administration Panel. 3. If there are available updates, apply them:./ppa_update --install-updates To upgrade PPA to the latest version: 1. Log in to the management node as root. 2. Download the latest version of the ppa_update utility: wget 3. Make the utility executable: chmod +x ppa_update 4. Check for available upgrades:./ppa_update --check-updates The information about available upgrades is also available on the home page of the Administration Panel. 5. If there are available upgrades, upgrade Plesk Automation:./ppa_update --upgrade

42 C H A P T E R 7 Backing Up Hosting Data In Plesk Automation, administrators and resellers are not provided with a centralized means of backing up and restoring the data of their customers. Only users logged in to the Hosting Panel can back up and restore data belonging to their accounts. Plesk Automation can save backup files only on an external FTP server - a backup server. Therefore, to enable the backup functionality, you must add a special backup node to the system. Important: 1. If there are no backup nodes registered in Plesk Automation, the backup and restore functions cannot be used, and the corresponding buttons will not be available to users in the Hosting Panel. 2. Backup servers do not require a license key. To enable the backup functionality: 1. Prepare a server with CentOS 5.9, 6.4 or later (x86 or x86-64). Other server requirements are described here. 2. Run the Add New Node wizard in Administration Panel > Infrastructure > Service Nodes. The wizard will ask you to provide the following information: The service node role: Backup server A node host name or an IP address and a root password Once you add the backup server, users will be able to back up the data related to their accounts and websites in Hosting Panel > Account > Back Up My Account and Websites and Hosting Panel > Account > Back Up Websites.

43 C H A P T E R 8 Customers and Resellers When you start your hosting business, you should define how you will offer hosting resources and services to customers. PPA lets you organize your business by means of service templates and subscriptions. A service template is a combination of resources and services that you sell to your customers. For example, a template that offers a hosting account with 1 GB of disk space and 50 GB of traffic is a shared hosting template. There are also service templates of other types described later in this section. When customers want to host a website on one of your servers, they subscribe to such a template. In other words, a subscription is a set of resources and services defined by a template that is available to a certain customer for a limited period of time. Serving Customers The typical workflow of serving hosting customers in PPA is as follows: 1. You create a shared hosting template in the Administration Panel. 2. When a customer is ready to subscribe to the template, you create the account and subscription for the customer. 3. PPA grants the customer permissions to log in and use services provided with the subscription. For the detailed instructions on each of these steps, refer to the section Serving Customers (on page 45). Serving Resellers Reseller templates allow you to sell your services to a special category of customers - resellers. Resellers are people who sell hosting accounts on your servers to others. From a business perspective, resellers are similar to hosting providers: they have access to the Administration Panel, their own online stores, and customer management tools. The difference is that resellers do not have their own hosting servers. Learn how to start serving resellers in the section Employing Resellers (on page 51). Business Automation with a Billing Solution Organizing your offerings into templates is only one step to get your business ready to run. Before you can start serving customers, you should also think about how potential customers will find your offerings, how you will subscribe new customers and take payments, and other aspects of your business. To let you start your business easier, we recommend that you use one of the supported billing automation solutions:

44 44 Customers and Resellers Parallels Business Automation Standard. Web Host Manager Complete Solution (WHMCS). Any homegrown billing system integrated with PPA by means of API. This will allow you to completely automate all aspects of your business. Note that if you decide to choose one of these products as your billing solution, the workflow will change. In general, it will be as follows: 1. You create a service template in the Administration Panel and a corresponding plan in the billing solution. 2. A customer subscribes to the plan through an online store provided by the billing solution. At this step, the solution creates a new customer account and subscription. 3. The billing solution propagates the customer account to the Administration Panel. 4. When the customer pays for the subscription, the billing solution propagates customer's subscription to the Administration Panel. 5. The Administration Panel allocates the subscription and grants the customer permissions to log in to the Hosting Panel and use services provided with the subscription. In this chapter: Serving Customers Creating Custom Service Offers Employing Resellers... 51

45 Customers and Resellers 45 Serving Customers According to the chapter Customer and Resellers (on page 43), to start serving a customer through the Administration Panel you should follow the typical workflow. Let us look at the workflow in more details: 1. Create a shared hosting template (on page 47). During the template creation, you will be prompted to specify a number of template properties like the services and resources provided with the template, configuration of these services, and so on. One of the key steps when creating a template is to define which nodes will be used for allocation of the template subscriptions. This is done by means of attributes. Learn more about them later in this section. 2. Create a customer account (on page 48). Each customer can have an arbitrary number of subscriptions: Skip this step if you want to create an additional subscription for an existing customer. Once the account is created, you can perform a number of operations with it: edit account properties (like account administrator credentials, contact information, and other), suspend the account, remove it, and so on. Learn more in the section Managing Customer Accounts (on page 73). 3. Create a customer subscription associated with the template (on page 48). As well as with customer accounts, you can edit subscription properties, suspend or remove the subscription, and so on. In addition, you are able to associate the subscription with another service template. Learn more in the section Managing Subscriptions (on page 64). Subscriptions are synced with their templates. Learn more about the relationship between templates and subscriptions next in this section. The Default Domain of a Subscription A customer subscription is always linked to a domain, called the default domain - a domain created along with the subscription, which is necessary for allocating system resources. This name is specified when creating a subscription. Relationship Between Templates and Subscriptions Subscriptions associated with a particular template are synced with it: Any changes made to the template can be applied to all its subscriptions. Besides, you can always customize a certain subscription: add more resources like diskspace or number of domains, give a customer more privileges comparing to the ones provided by the template, and so on. Note that the Administration Panel does not track such customized subscriptions: They always stay synced with their template. This means that when you change the properties of the template and apply them to subscriptions, the customized subscription will be affected as well. You can work around this limitation by applying template changes individually to each subscription excluding the customized ones. Learn how to do this in the section Managing Subscriptions (on page 64).

46 46 Customers and Resellers Attributes: How PPA Provisions Customer Subscriptions When you register service nodes in PPA, you distinguish them by their roles. Typically, your infrastructure contains a number of nodes which provide web hosting services, a number of mail server nodes, nodes with some mixed role, and so on. When a subscription is created, PPA picks up the most suitable service node and allocates the resources into a newly created hosting account. The central issue of such automatic provisioning is how to let PPA know on which node to provision a certain subscription resource. PPA uses the provisioning attributes for that purpose. Attribute is a tag that links a template and nodes on which the services included into the template can be set up. When a customer subscribes to the template, PPA chooses one of the nodes for allocating the subscription resources by matching the attributes of a node and the template. Next in this section: Creating Shared Hosting Templates Creating Customer Accounts Subscribing Customers to Services... 48

47 Customers and Resellers 47 Creating Shared Hosting Templates To create a shared hosting template, run the wizard Products > Service Templates > Add Shared Hosting Template in the Administration Panel. During the template creation, you will be prompted to specify a number of parameters: Provided services. The shared hosting template may include the Apache- or IIS-based web hosting service and Postfix-based mail service. IP address type. The service template can provide IPv4 and IPv6 addresses. IP addresses may be granted as either dedicated, meaning that the target subscriber becomes the only owner of this address, or shared, meaning that this address is shared among many subscribers. Note that in order to provide dedicated IP addresses, you must configure IP pools as described in Configuring IP Pools (on page 13). Attributes. As described in the section Serving Customers (on page 45), an attribute is a tag that links a template and nodes on which the services included into the template can be set up. Thus, you should choose at least one attribute that is also assigned to the nodes which you want to use for allocating subscriptions. Other template settings. The template parameters also include: resource limits (diskspace, traffic, number of domains, and other), customer permissions (ability to change PHP settings, access through SSH, and other), service settings (for example, if the template provides a web hosting service, this may be the support for various scripting languages, the PHP handler type, and other). Important: IIS web server nodes do not provide the support for the following components out of the box: - Coldfusion scripting language. - MIVA scripting language. - ASP.NET framework. - Microsoft FrontPage. Apache web server nodes do not provide the support for the following components out of the box: - Coldfusion scripting language. Therefore, before including the support for these components in service templates, install them manually on those nodes that you want to use for template subscriptions.

48 48 Customers and Resellers Creating Customer Accounts To create a customer account, run the wizard Operations > Customers > Add New Customer in the Administration Panel. During the customer account creation, you will be prompted to specify a number of parameters: Contact information. These are company name, address, and other information. In addition, you should specify administrative, billing, and technical contacts. The two latter contacts are optional. Account administrator information. An account administrator is the company representative who has the administrative privileges to a customer account: They are able to log in to the Hosting Panel and perform hosting management (create websites and mailboxes, manage website content, install web apps, and so on). Learn more about access to PPA in the section User Access to <PPA_ name> (on page 56). You should provide PPA with the account administrator credentials (username and password) and their contact information (typically, the account administrator and the administrative contact are the same persons). Subscribing Customers to Services To subscribe a customer to a service template, run the wizard Operations > Subscriptions > Create New Subscription in the Administration Panel. During the subscription creation, you will be prompted to specify a customer (subscription owner) and a template. Though the resources provided with the subscription are defined by the template, you can customize them (for example, add more diskspace, provide a dedicated IP address instead of the shared one, and so on). Learn more about the relationship between subscriptions and templates in the section Serving Customers (on page 45). Once you complete the wizard, PPA will start the provisioning task - the allocation of subscription resources on service nodes. In case of any issues, you can check task details in System > Task Manager > Task Log.

49 Customers and Resellers 49 Creating Custom Service Offers The default PPA service templates (shared hosting and reseller templates) provide a predefined set of services. Thus, a shared hosting template always includes a web hosting or mail service, an IP address, the DNS service, and so on. This section contains information on how to create custom service offerings - custom templates, which can provide a non-standard set of services. For example, you can create a custom service template that provides DNS services only. You can use such a template for offering the domain parking service. For the better understanding of how to work with custom templates, we recommend that you acquaint with the PPA concepts underlying service templates. They are described in this section. Service Templates and Resource Types The set of services that you can offer within a service template is defined by resources (called resource types) registered in the system. See the diagram for convenience. When talking about resources, we actually mean system resources and services a customer can use: disk space, traffic, the DNS service, and so on. For example, every customer should have an IP address for accessing their websites, therefore, they should be provided with the IP Address resource. Resource type properties allow you to set the limit for a resource or specify the configuration of a certain service provided by the template. Thus, for the IP Address resource you can specify the address type: IPv4 or IPv6, shared or dedicated.