SWsoft PEM 2.6. Provider's Guide. Revision (April 4, 2007)

Transcription

1 SWsoft PEM 2.6 Provider's Guide Revision (April 4, 2007) (c)

2 2 Contents Preface 11 About This Guide...12 Who Should Read This Guide...12 Organization of This Guide...12 Documentation Conventions...13 Typographical Conventions...14 General Conventions...14 Feedback...15 Introduction 16 Managing Internet Hosting...16 Server Control Panels...17 Service Plans and Subscriptions...17 Role of Web Server Management Software in Hosting Business...18 Individual Web Server Compared with Web Server Network Management...19 Customer Accounts...19 Resource Provisioning...19 Server Network Management Using PEM...19 Distributed Resource Provisioning...21 Customer Accounts in PEM...22 Sales and Billing...22 Branding Your Services...23 Building Your Sales Network...23 Providing Technical Support...24 Expanding Your Server Park and Business...24 Capitalizing on Advanced Technologies to Improve Productivity of Your Hardware...24 Why PEM?...24 Improved Efficiency...24 Enhanced Automation...25 Understanding PEM Concepts 28 Understanding PEM Components...28 Service Controllers...28 Packages...29 Applications...31 Understanding Provisioning Concept...32 What Is Resource Type...32 Service Template...33 Service Plan...33 Autoprovisioning and Role of Attributes...34 Understanding Concept of Roles...36 Security Model...36 Concept of Privileges...38 Concept of Roles...38 Understanding Hierarchy of Accounts and Users...39 What is Account...39 Staff Members...39 Types of Accounts...39

3 Contents 3 Managing Reseller Accounts...41 Managing Customer Accounts...41 Managing Staff Members...41 Using PEM to Solve Your Tasks...41 Applications Installation...42 Accounts Management...42 Monitoring...43 PEM User Interface 44 Supported Browser Platforms...45 Top Frame...45 Navigation Frame - Console Root Tree...46 Navigation Frame Structure...46 Operations Director...47 Service Director...48 Deployment Director...49 Marketing Director...49 System Director...50 Personal Information...51 Support...52 Main Frame...52 Summary Panel...52 Dialog Panel...52 Managing Accounts 61 Configuring Your Account...61 Managing Your Company Profile Information...62 Customizing Interface...66 Managing Help Boxes...69 Creating Certificates...70 Managing User Repository...75 Registering Staff Members...77 Managing Privileges...80 Managing Session Timeouts...82 Setting Password Policies...84 Configuring Login History Settings...86 Managing Language Packs...87 Configuring System Properties...89 Configuring Customer Control Panel...93 Show Domain Registrar Status...95 Show Search Panel Above Lists...96 Show Buttons Above Lists...97 Show Full Domain Info...98 Show Website IP Address and Type...99 Show Totals Only if List Is Longer Than One Page Replace Single Elements List With Element Properties Screen Simplified Web Hosting Management Simplified Mail Hosting Management Show IMAP Server in CCP Operating Resellers and Customers Adding New Subscriber Account Editing Administrator Role for Subscriber Subscribing to Service Template Upgrading and Downgrading Subscriptions Disabling/Enabling Account Deleting Account

4 Managing Hardware Nodes 114 Adding New Hardware Node Keeping Records of Racks and Switches Adding Racks and Switches Assigning Hosts to Racks and Switches Managing IP Pools Adding New IP Pool Assigning IP Pool to User Account Attaching and Binding IP Pool to Host Installing Services (Applications) on Hardware Node Managing Backups for PEM Management Node, UI Server, and System Databases Generating Keys Backup Scripts Restoring Backup File Removing Hardware Node Managing Packages 127 Adding Package Manifest to Repository Editing Package Properties Adding URL to Packages Location Managing Mirrors Managing Single Package Installing Package on Host Upgrading Packages Uninstalling Packages Adding RPM at Host PPM Group Operation Creating New PPM Group Operation Duplicating One Host Packages Configuration for Other Hosts Native Repository Adding Native Repository Reindexing Native Repository Deleting Native Repository Administering Applications 142 Starting/Stopping Application Managing Apache Application Managing Clustered-qmail Application Managing Logrotate Application Managing SpamAssassin Application Managing WsC Application Adding Product ID Managing Time Synchronization Application Configuring Server or Client Mode for NTP Application Adding / Deleting an NTP host Verifying Successful Time Synchronization Setup Managing Web Application Groups Creating New Web Application Group Editing Group Parameters Deleting Web Application Group Adding Applications to Group Removing Applications From Group Managing Service Templates 163 Managing Provisioning Attributes

5 Contents 5 Creating Resource Type Creating Service Template Creating Service Template for Domain Parking Hosting Creating Service Template for Apache Web Hosting Creating Service Template for Mail Hosting Custom Type Windows Shared Hosting Type Activating Service Template Showing or Hiding Features by Resources Cloning Service Template Editing Resources and Limits for Service Template Creating Service Plan from Service Template in Billing Manager Creating Service Plan Category Creating Service Plan Publishing Service Plan in Webstore Viewing Subscriptions List Setting Up Administrator Role VPS Hosting in PEM 203 Managing VPS Hardware Node Adding New VPS Hardware Node Marking VPS Hardware Node as Used for Templates Import Managing Templates Managing Operating System Template Managing Application Templates Associating Templates With VPS Hardware Nodes Using Pre-installed Templates Synchronizing Templates With VPS Hardware Nodes Managing EZ Templates Managing EZ OS Templates Installing EZ Application Templates Managing VPS Creating VPS Resource Type Creating Resource Type for VPSs on EZ OS Template Creating Resource Type for VPSs on Virtuozzo for Windows Configuring Hostnames for VPSs Managing VZPP Access Permissions Creating Service Templates for VPS Hosting Before Creating Your First VPS Creating New VPS Starting, Stopping and Restarting VPS Migrating Virtual Private Servers Backing Up and Restoring VPS Game Hosting in PEM 247 Expanding Your System With New VPS Hardware Node Creating Resource Types Uploading Resources to VPS Hardware Node Starting Resources Provisioning Introducing New Game Servers Into PEM Preparing Game Server Software Registering Game Server Application Template Associating Application Template With VPS Hardware Nodes Creating and Modifying Game and Voice Hosting Service Templates Synchronizing Application Template With VPS Hardware Node Including New Game Server Application Template Into Gaming Service Template

6 Setting Resource Rates for Game Server in Billing Manager Managing System Resources Consumption Provisioning Game Server Specifying Resources Consumption Values for Game Server Managing Game Servers Backups Upgrading Game Servers Managing Game Boxes Voice Hosting in PEM 261 Voice Hosting Deployment Adding Voice Server Application Template to PEM Assigning VPS Hardware Node Provisioning Attribute(s) to Voice Server Application Template Synchronizing Voice Hosting Application Templates with Virtual or Physical Servers Installing Voice Server on Selected VPS or Hardware Node Managing Voice Hosting Mail Hosting in PEM 268 Deploying Clustered qmail Service Creating Service Nodes Creating Shared Data Storage Creating qmail Cluster Adding Service Nodes to Cluster Installing Packages on Cluster Nodes Creating Load Balancer SiteBuilder Hosting in PEM 277 Installing PEM Packages for SiteBuilder Management Adding New SiteBuilder Server Creating Resource Types for SiteBuilder Service Provisioning Including SiteBuilder Hosting Into Service Plans Viewing SiteBuilder Server Configuration and Usage Information Synchronizing SiteBuilder Plans and Features Managing SiteBuilder Server Access Parameters Logging In to SiteBuilder as Root User Enabling Users to Create Only Trial Websites Windows-based Hosting in PEM 285 Creating Service Template for Windows-based Shared Hosting Creating "Physical Hosting (IIS)" Resource Type Creating Service Template Specifying Activation Parameters Adding New Windows Node Creating Windows Node Resource Type Obtaining Host-initial-data File Preparing Windows Node for Adding to System Disabling Windows Password Policy Installing PEM Agent on MPS Engine Node Registering Windows Services in PEM Administering Windows Services on Hosts Managing IIS Web Server Parameters Setting Domain Controller as Preferred Managing AWStats Web Statistics Monitoring MPS Server MPS Engine Monitoring

7 Contents 7 ProvEngineClient Monitoring MS SQL Database Hosting Registering MS SQL Server Application in PEM Creating Service Template for MS SQL Server Hosting Managing the MS SQL Service Autoprovisioning MS SQL Service Configuring Database Connectivity Including DSN Management Option in Customer Subscriptions Backing Up and Restoring Databases Creating Resource Types for MS SQL Service Hosting Installing MS SQL Package Creating PEM Service Template for MSSQL Hosting Providing Windows SiteBuilder Usage Managing SharePoint Services Creating Service Template for SharePoint Hosting Removing Customer's Data From SharePoint Services Exchange Hosting in PEM 336 Creating Service Template for Exchange Hosting Hosted Exchange Activation Parameters Examples of Using "Custom MX records template" Activation Parameter Stopping/Starting Exchange SMTP Application Providing Global Address Lists Configuring Offline Address Book Specifying Update Settings Exchange Store Management Registering Store Configuring Store Unregistering Store Outlook Access Setup Plesk in VPS Hosting in PEM 350 Assumptions and Dependencies Creating Resource Type for Plesk in VPS Hosting Creating Service Template for Plesk in VPS Hosting Streaming Media Hosting in PEM 355 Creating Service Template for Streaming Media Hosting Handling Streaming Media Server Accessibility Allowing/Denying New Connections Limiting Streaming Media Service Connection Quota Management Bandwidth Quota Management Disk Quota Management Traffic Accounting Host Capacity Management Marketing Operations 362 Sending News Messages and Announcements Creating Newsletter Category Editing Newsletter Category Subdividing Newsletters Into Topics Editing Topic Creating News Message

8 Editing News Message Branding in PEM Customizing PEM Skin Creating Subscription for Branding Subscribing Reseller to Branding Branding Domains Hosted in PEM Configuring Brand Branding Website Template Branding External Domains Managing Domains 405 Adding Domain Administering Domain Disabling/Enabling Domain DNS Managing Setting Registrar Status to Ready Deleting Domains Monitoring System 419 Managing Background Tasks Managing Scheduled Tasks Viewing Processed Tasks Managing Periodic Tasks Configuring Task Manager Settings Handling Events Adding and Customizing Action Changing Editing Mode Managing Notifications Subscribing to Notification Messages Notification Message Customization Viewing Notification Messages Received via HTTP Monitoring PEM Components Monitoring Hosts Monitoring Applications Monitoring Service Controllers Monitoring Websites Monitoring Resources Managing Trouble Ticketing System Configuring Request Tracker Settings in PEM Managing Trouble Tickets Migrating Servers to PEM from Competitor Platforms 442 Planning Migration and Configuring Migration Process Registering Source Server for Migration Preparing Migration Performing Migration Selecting Registered Platforms for Migration Selecting Accounts for Migration Selecting Account's Domains for Migration Verifying Accounts Scheduled for Migration Migrating Accounts Webspace Structure Overview 457 System Users and Groups Directory Structure

9 Contents 9 Web Applications Directory Structure Glossary of Terms 461 Index 467

10 ISBN: N/A SWsoft Sunrise Valley Drive Suite 325 Herndon VA USA Phone: +1 (703) Fax: +1 (703) Copyright SWsoft. All rights reserved. Distribution of this work or derivative of this work in any form is prohibited unless prior written permission is obtained from the copyright holder. PEM is a registered trademark of SWsoft, Inc. Linux is a registered trademark of Linus Torvalds. RedHat is a registered trademark of Red Hat Software, Inc. UNIX is a registered trademark of The Open Group. Intel, Pentium, Xeon and Celeron are registered trademarks of Intel Corporation. SSH and Secure Shell are trademarks of SSH Communications Security, Inc. Request Tracker is a trademark of Best Practical Solutions, LLC.

11 11 C HAPTER 1 Preface In This Chapter About This Guide Who Should Read This Guide Organization of This Guide Documentation Conventions Feedback... 15

12 Preface 12 About This Guide This guide serves to give you all the necessary information on PEM a magnificent tool of managing your hosting resources and services. It describes PEM concepts, features, interface layout and detailed step-by-step instructions on every possible operation. With this guide, managing your hosting abilities in PEM becomes as easy as it ever could be. The important thing for you to know is that PEM is highly customizable. When you buy the PEM distribution at your vendor, you get the access only to a part of PEM functionality. It means that possibly far not all the services can be available to you, though you may obtain them later. Hosting services and tools that PEM is able to provide are realized through the user interface. Depending on your individual license, some of them may be invisible. It concerns menu items, dashboards, internal links, tabs and other interface elements. At that, some topics, screenshots, icons you will come across while reading this guide may not fully correspond to what you actually see in your control panel. This guide is organized in such a way, that after reading PEM Concepts chapter, you could directly turn to the subject you are interested in. Who Should Read This Guide The primary audience for this guide are providers having any hosting resources and services and people engaged in administering provider's resources via PEM. Organization of This Guide Chapter 2, Introduction (on page 16), describes PEM as a Web hosting management business tool in connection with the Internet hosting business tasks. Chapter 3, Understanding PEM Concepts (on page 28), familiarizes you with PEM basic notions and major ways of working with the user interface. This is the information you need to know before starting to use PEM. Chapter 4, PEM User Interface (on page 44), gives you the detailed description of PEM interface layout, navigation tools and operation panels you will come across using PEM. Chapter 5, Managing Accounts (on page 61), explains the ways to set up your own representation in PEM and describes how to work with resellers' and customers' accounts. Chapter 6, Managing Hardware Nodes (on page 114), provides information on how to extend your system with new hardware resources and assign them for certain provisioning tasks.

13 Preface 13 Chapter 7, Managing Packages (on page 127), tells you how to install any type of software used within PEM. Chapter 8, Administering Applications (on page 142), gives the instructions on managing various applications available in PEM. Chapter 9, Managing Service Templates (on page 163), shows the way to make any valid combination of your hosting resources for provisioning purposes. Chapter 10, VPS Hosting in PEM (on page 203), provides information on VPS technology and the ways to create, manage and sell Virtual Private Servers. Chapter 11, Game Hosting in PEM (on page 247), explains the ways to set up and provide game servers to the public. Chapter 12, Voice Hosting in PEM (on page 261), is devoted to the description of voice hosting installation and management instructions. Chapter 13, Mail Hosting in PEM (on page 268), describes how to deploy and manage clustered Qmail services in PEM. Chapter 14, SiteBuilder Hosting in PEM (on page 277), provides information about SiteBuilder application. Chapter 15, Windows-based Hosting in PEM (on page 285), describes the process of adding and managing services based on Windows platform. Chapter 16, Plesk in VPS Hosting in PEM (on page 350), gives an idea of how to deploy Plesk servers inside VPS and manage them via PEM. Chapter 17, Managing Domains (on page 405), explains how to add and manage domains via PEM user interface. Chapter 18, Marketing Operations (on page 362), acquaints you with the operations in PEM purposed for your business promotion like branding web-sites and sending news and announcements to resellers and customers. Chapter 19, Monitoring System (on page 419), explains how to follow the state of the main components in PEM using various functions. Appendix 1, Webspace Structure Overview (on page 457), gives a brief overview of PEM webspace structure detailed enough for migrating data from the other web-hosting system. Appendix 2, PEM Privileges, makes it clear of how the PEM interface changes depending on privileges that the user is given. Documentation Conventions Before you start using this guide, it is important to understand the documentation conventions used in it.

14 Preface 14 Typographical Conventions The following kinds of formatting in the text identify special information. Formatting convention Type of Information Example Special Bold Italics Monospace Preformatted Preformatted Bold CAPITALS KEY+KEY Items you must select, such as menu options, command buttons, or items in a list. Titles of chapters, sections, and subsections. Used to emphasize the importance of a point, to introduce a term or to designate a command line placeholder, which is to be replaced with a real name or value. The names of commands, files, and directories. On-screen computer output in your command-line sessions; source code in XML, C++, or other programming languages. What you type, contrasted with on-screen computer output. Names of keys on the keyboard. Key combinations for which the user must press and hold down one key and then press another. Go to the QoS tab. Read the Basic Administration chapter. The system supports the so called wildcard character search. The license file is located in the httpdocs/common/licens es directory. # ls al /files total # cd /root/rpms/php SHIFT, CTRL, ALT CTRL+P, ALT+F4 General Conventions Chapters in this guide are divided into sections, which, in turn, are subdivided into subsections. For example, Documentation Conventions is a section, and General Conventions is a subsection. When following steps or using examples, be sure to type double-quotes ("), left single-quotes (`), and right single-quotes (') exactly as shown.

15 Preface 15 Feedback If you have found a mistake in this guide, or if you have suggestions or ideas on how to improve this guide, please send your feedback to userdocs@swsoft.com. Please include in your report the guide's title, chapter and section titles, and the fragment of text in which you have found an error.

16 16 C HAPTER 2 Introduction This chapter describes PEM as a Web hosting management business tool in connection with the Internet hosting business tasks. PEM is a multi-server management and control system for both Unix and Windows based web hosts. The system is intended for web hosting companies of any size - data centers and Internet service providers (ISPs). PEM is a reliable and versatile server management platform that automates all the Web hosting management tasks. PEM is capable of providing a complete, flexible web hosting management solution for single server service providers, and suppliers of thousands of servers including dedicated and collocated customer services. The scope of automation that PEM offers is broad and covers the vast aspects of a web hosting business. From controlling a single address, to managing the billing for the entire company, PEM has the capability to provide a fast, robust, accurate and comprehensive way to managing many sides of any web hosting business. You can use PEM to build an Internet hosting business with truly global outreach and diverse customer group coverage. PEM supports centralized management of a multitier network of resellers. PEM provides all required functionality for resellers, who wish to buy hosting resources in bulk from hardware owners and then resell them in smaller, customized packages to end-users. In This Chapter Managing Internet Hosting Server Network Management Using PEM Why PEM? Managing Internet Hosting This section describes internet hosting management concepts and definitions. The Internet hosting business' hightech nature spells the need for hightech management tools. Server control panels (on page 17) are software programs that are used to manage web server resources. Today, the main challenge to running a hosting business lies in the area of automation of server management tasks. The internet hosting business provides the following basic services: Internet connectivity Computer resources

17 Introduction 17 Server Control Panels Server control panels are Web-based multi-user Web server management software programs. Control panel provides the interface between the owners and end-users of hosting resources, on one side, and the computer resources, on the other side. Using control panels, the following tasks can be performed: Administering Web servers Creating and managing customer accounts Provisioning computer resources for resellers and end-users Monitoring resource usage by customers Enforcing customer compliance with subscription terms By logging in to control panels, customers can monitor and modify their sites/services within the rights and limits that you assign to them. Note: In PEM, the term control panel has taken a different meaning. It is used to designate the Web-based access point to PEM user accounts. When users log in to their accounts, they are said to log in to their control panels. Service Plans and Subscriptions Computer resources and software services are sold in packages also called service plans. A service plan includes resources and services needed to set up and maintain one or more Internet services such as box, an on-line database, website and other Web services on a single customer account. A service plan is a commercial offer of a computer resources and services package. When customers buy service plans, they reserve rights to use up certain amount of hosting resources and services at a certain rate over a certain period of time in the future, usually starting from the day of purchase. Purchasing a service plan is equivalent to subscribing to the services listed in the plan. This is why computer resources and services provisioned for customer accounts are called subscriptions. A corresponding subscription denotes the same amount of resources and services that are listed in the service plan, but that have already been provisioned for end-users and are managed by the end-users.

18 Introduction 18 Role of Web Server Management Software in Hosting Business The gains in productivity and efficiency achieved by web server automation software deploying include: Increases in IT efficiency, as measured by the time to perform various operational tasks. Improved server to system administrator ratios, resulting in reduced IT labor costs. Reduction in downtime. server misconfigurations, faulty code and content deployment, and incompatible patch applications are the most frequent causes of downtime. When using server management software, administrators commit fewer errors in performing such tasks. Improved security. Using server automation software results in a reduction in the number of security breaches and risk of internal tampering, preventing against rogue administrators.

19 Introduction 19 Individual Web Server Compared with Web Server Network Management Web servers on the provider's network can be managed individually or collectively. When the servers are managed individually, each web server has a control panel installed on it that is used to manage resources of the individual server only. When the servers are managed collectively, there is a single control panel installed on a dedicated Web server management node that is used to manage all Web servers on the network using a single control panel. Note: PEM is a collective Web server management platform. In addition to providing the convenience of managing all individual servers from a single interface, PEM also supports distributed service provisioning, that can significantly increase the productivity of your software. Customer Accounts All transactions between a customer and a provider on the customer's side are conducted on behalf of the customer account. Providers create customer accounts and supply account login information to customers. To manage accounts, customers must log in to their accounts. Customers can enable access and set up user rights for multiple users on a single account. Resource Provisioning We define resource provisioning as making resources available to customers for use. Resource provisioning may include the following operations: Software installation Server configuration Turning user access "on" and "off" across diskspace, databases, applications, and other resources. Note: When individual server control panels are used to manage Web servers, resources for an individual customer account are provisioned on a single server. This puts limitations on the resources that you can package together in a single server plan. PEM supports advanced technologies such as server vritualization and distributed service provisioning that can overcome these limitations, greatly enhancing the productivity of your hardware. Server Network Management Using PEM This section describes PEM as the business tool to manage an Internet hosting business.

20 Introduction 20 PEM is a multiple Web server management platform. PEM provides the convenience of managing all individual servers from a single access point. PEM also supports distributed service provisioning (on page 21), which can significantly increase the productivity of your hardware. Note: PEM is installed on a dedicated management hardware node. You can bring any server (actually, any device) on the network under the PEM control. PEM is fully integrated with its companion software - Billing Manager - that has a builtin on-line store. Using the combination of PEM and Billing Manager, you can perform the following tasks: Creating service plans Publishing service plans on-line Creating separate on-line stores for different brands Accepting customer orders and sell service plans Creating and managing customer accounts Billing the customers (on page 22) Monitoring customer payments Subscribing customers (on page 17) to service plans Autoprovisioning services (on page 21) for your customers Branding access points to your control panels Monitoring and enforcing customer compliance with subscription terms Posting messages for your customers on their control panels Providing technical support

21 Introduction 21 Distributed Resource Provisioning This subsection describes the concept of resource provisioning in PEM. The traditional way of resource provisioning requires that server administrator manually configures server access parameters, user rights, permissions, and resource usage limits for each customer account. In PEM, you will find different web hosting services associated with a given customer account on several network servers. You can create specialized server machines devoted to running certain types of hosting services web hosting, mail hosting, game hosting etc. - for all your clients. PEM will do all the concomitant system configuring automatically to enable running different hosting services on different specialized servers. This is called autoprovisioning and is realized through a mechanism utilizing two types of service objects service templates (on page 21) and provisioning attributes (on page 21). Service Templates To provision hosting resources for use by customers, PEM uses service templates. Service template is a list of resources with defined usage limits. Service templates contain information that must be provided to PEM so that it can automatically provision services for customers. Without service templates, each individual resource on a customer account would have to be provisioned manually. Service templates can be used to automatically provision resources and services on millions of customer accounts. If you want to change a particular provisioned resource individually, you would need to create a separate service template containing the desired configuration change and then apply it to the account. Attributes Attributes or provisioning attributes are PEM-specific service objects that are used in the the process of service provisioning. The central issue of the distributed autoprovisioning is how to let PEM know on what server to provision a resource listed in a service template. PEM relies on the provisioning attributes to find servers on the network that are appropriate for provisioning of given resources. Provisioning attribute is a PEM-specific parameter that is created by provider. The attribute is assigned to both servers and individual resources in service templates. It is used to match servers and resources during resource provisioning. For an individual resource listed in a server template to be provisioned on a particular server, the provisioning attribute assigned to the resource must match the provisioning attribute assigned to the server. Prior to provisioning the resource, PEM finds Web servers on the network that have the same attribute as the resource's, then determines a server that is best suited for the resource provisioning. Finally, PEM will provision the resource on the selected server.

22 Introduction 22 Customer Accounts in PEM PEM supports two types of customer accounts (on page 19): customer account - the resource end-user account. Resources provisioned on behalf of this type of account cannot be resold further. reseller account - this type of account is intended for reselling of hosting resources purchased from provider. Sales and Billing You can use PEM in combination with its companion software - Billing Manager - to manage your sales and billing operations. Billing Manager supports all business tasks related to creating and selling service plans. Billing Manager will also pass all required order and customer information to PEM for service provisioning. Billing Manager is fully integrated with both PEM and the built-in online store that is included in the Billing Manager installation package. You can use Billing Manager to perform the following tasks: Creating service plans. Billing Manager imports service templates from PEM and uses them to create service plans. Creating and managing the online store. The built-in online store serves as a retail outlet for your service plans and collects new customer information that is required for creating accounts and service provisioning. Publishing service plans online. Billing Manager publishes service plans on the online store. Billing your customers. Billing Manager generates invoices and automatically forwards them to customers who have submitted orders. Collecting and monitoring payments. Billing Manager charges customer credit cards and notifies administrators about payments made to your company bank account.

23 Introduction 23 Branding Your Services By branding your services, you can establish your own identity in the market place. A recognizable brand is essential for any successful marketing activity on your part. PEM provides you with sophisticated tools to brand access gateways to you services. Using a single PEM installation, you can run several hosting sales operations under different brand names. You can also provide the access point branding service to your sub-resellers. Building Your Sales Network You can use PEM to expand your customer base by enlisting resellers of your hosting resources. PEM provides efficient means for providers to sell reseller packages and support reseller business operations. By building networks of loyal resellers, providers can solidify their control over many market segments that would otherwise be out of their reach. PEM supports all business and technical tasks required to break reseller hosting packages purchased by resellers into smaller, customized packages sold to end-users or subresellers. The reseller's PEM functionality is essentially the same as provider's, but it is subject to limits set providers. Consult PEM Reseller's guide for more information about the reseller functionality.

24 Introduction 24 Providing Technical Support You can login to your customer accounts with administrator rights and examine problem reported by customers. You can easily set up a system of tracking and billing for technical support that you provide to your customers using one of the trouble ticketing software available, for example, Request Tracker. Request Tracker is included in PEM distribution package. You can, in fact, include this option in your service plans. And last but not least, your resellers can easily outsource technical support to you. You and your resellers use the same PEM; hence, you will have access to all of your enduser accounts managed by your resellers. Expanding Your Server Park and Business PEM is scalable to hundreds of thousands of servers and to millions of customer accounts. So, there is virtually no limit on your business development. Whenever you feel like adding another thousand or two servers to your PEM-managed server park to handle the increasing flow of customer orders, you can do that in just a few clicks. Capitalizing on Advanced Technologies to Improve Productivity of Your Hardware PEM employs several technologies that improve the productivity of your hardware and the quality of your services. 1 Distributed resource provisioning (on page 21) PEM analyzes the network servers configurations and workload and picks the most optimal destination of resource provisioning. You need to assign provisioning attributes (on page 21) to servers and resources you want to provision. The rest is handled automatically by PEM. 2 Server virtualization technology (on page 203) PEM can virtualize your hardware nodes into multiple virtual servers. This provides additional quality-of-service and security benefits. Why PEM? The return on investment from server management software is measured in terms of reduction in the number of technical staff required to operate a hosting business or data center, increased hardware efficiencies, and improved quality of data center operations. Improved Efficiency PEM provides the following improvements over legacy server management platforms: Improved server to system administrator ratios

25 Introduction 25 By enabling remote, scalable management of hundreds of servers, organizations can improve their server to system administrator ratios. On average, nonautomated hosting businesses currently achieve 18:1 server to administrator ratios. Using PEM can significantly improve those ratios to as good as 100:1. Increased efficiency By automating many of the manual tasks involved in deploying and managing hundreds of thousands of servers running software, hosting businesses see productivity gains by using PEM to speed operational tasks. Deployments, upgrades and patching processes that used to take weeks and months can now be completed in weeks hours or days. Improved operational consistency and quality Because PEM contains a best-practices repository on numerous technologies, and maintains an up-to-date record of the state of the customer's environment, hosting businesses reduce their reliance on specialists and document management systems and processes. Reduced downtime Because automation brings and improved consistency and hence higher level of quality of hosting operations, system downtime and the costs associated with downtime are significantly reduced. In addition to these major areas of costsavings, hosting businesses utilizing PEM receive additional improvements in the quality of their operations. Improved security PEM allows organizations to enforce processes and best-practices for building and making changes to servers. This reduces the risk of ad-hoc changes causing an unforeseen breach in overall system security. PEM also maintains an automatic audit trail o fall changes made to each and every PEM managed server in an environment within a staff and reduces the risk of internal tampering. Improved IT visibility PEM maintains an always up-to-date inventory of hardware and software running in your environment. This automated server inventory and software tracking gives hosting businesses greater insight into their operations activities, enables resource analysis, and providers hosting businesses with greater visibility into server and software states. Hosting businesses can user PEM to easily deliver detailed reports to finance or other departments for compliance and other accounting purposes. Improved disaster recovery and business continuity planning Hosting businesses can use PEM to manage geographically dispersed application environments form a single console. This allows for simultaneous updates across multiple data centers and ensures consistence in complex, distributed application environments. In addition as server changes are made in one location, PEM captures and saves those changes in other data centers, enabling the rapid re-build of an entire environment in the event of a disaster. Enhanced Automation The most significant gains are found from PEM automation of the following tasks: Operating system provisioning

26 Introduction 26 Organizations need an automated way to provision a complete server baseline onto new or existing servers so the application-ready system is in a known, consistent, and secure state. This need for automation is apparent when the task at hand is to provision just 1 or 2 servers and so much more apparent when the need is to provision 20 or 30 servers over a weekend to quickly ramp up capacity for a demanding business application. PEM provisioning capabilities gives administrators the ability to provision operating system baselines quickly, consistently, and with minimal manual intervention onto bare metal servers. PEM provides great improvements to IT efficiency by enabling rapid, scalable OS provisioning across UNIX, Windows, and Linux servers. Software provisioning Installing software and web applications, across a large number of servers, requires significant time and expertise in the installation procedures, configuration, and best practices for each software package. PEM software provisioning capabilities improves the quality, consistency and security involved in installing software into the production environment by capturing and leveraging the expertise required to deploy software. It also allows hosting businesses to rapidly and consistently deploy software simultaneously across hundreds or thousands of servers, using best practices and proven configurations. Users can reduce the time required to build new applications and reduce the cost of operations by automating knowledge transfer between organizations. PEM also previews all software changes, validates changes before propagating to the physical environment differences between the modeled environment and physical are automatically reconciled. Patch management Typically, an organization must use several tools to detect vulnerable servers and patch levels, apply patches to large numbers of servers, and create patch reports. Adding to the overall cost any new patch distributed to existing servers requires an update to the standard server builds, to include that same patch on any future servers. Research from the META Group estimates it takes 1920 hours to apply four patches (the average number an IT department deploys per month) across 120 servers. Multiplied by hundreds or thousands of servers, and again by the number of patches published per month, and an organization's annual patch cost is typically measured in the millions of dollars. By automating the process of detecting and applying patches across hundreds or thousands of servers simultaneously, rather than manually, one by one, PEM saves hosting organizations significant time and money. Distributed script execution Executing scripts can be a manual, repetitive process that entails logging to each server, executing the script, viewing the output, taking any necessary follow-up action, and moving on to the next server to perform the exact same steps. PEM automates script execution by allowing administrators to perform tasks across hundreds or thousands of Unix and Windows servers simultaneously, greatly improving IT productivity. PEM's script execution feature is different from script execution 'point tools' because it is the first "intelligent" automated script execution system that leverages knowledge about an environment to help administrators apply the right scripts to the right servers. Code Deployment & Rollback

27 Introduction 27 Deploying new code or content can be a tedious process that frequently causes outages in a customer's operations infrastructure. PEM code deployment and rollback feature reduces the risk of causing downtime or poor performance by automating the deployment (and, if necessary, rollback) of code, content and configuration changes on multiple operating systems. PEM administrators use a central Web-based interface to manage the process end-to-end. Because code and configuration changes are a frequent cause of application downtime, PEM Code Deployment and Rollback has built-in rollback capabilities: administrators roll back to a last known good release across all affected servers with a single push of a button. The PEM code deployment and rollback feature also leverages the scalability of PEM. Users can distribute changes across hundreds of servers at once, greatly increasing IT efficiency.

28 28 C HAPTER 3 Understanding PEM Concepts In This Chapter Understanding PEM Components Understanding Provisioning Concept Understanding Concept of Roles Understanding Hierarchy of Accounts and Users Using PEM to Solve Your Tasks Understanding PEM Components Service Controllers Service controllers are applications that implement certain parts of PEM functionality. All PEM service controllers can be divided into three groups: Main - these components together comprise the PEM kernel, they implement such functions as: authentication mechanism, resource usage statistics gathering, package management, system object management (creation, management and removal), and so on. External - these components implement management functions over the corresponding services, such as: Apache, ProFTPD, QMail, Database, and so on. Supplementary - these components expand the basic PEM functionality with various useful functions, such as notification management. In PEM control panel, you can view the properties of your service controllers. For this purpose, go to Top > System Director > Configuration Manager > Service Controllers. Here you can see the list of all service controllers in your system. The version and the state of each service controller is indicated. The same parameters are displayed on the General tab that opens after you click a service controller name. Open the Hosts tab to view the hosts the service controller is installed on.

29 Understanding PEM Concepts 29 Packages In PEM, the mechanism of packages allows to install and manage all types of software that is used within PEM. Services, like Apache web server or QMail, are added to the system in the form of packages. The corresponding service controllers that are necessary for making use of the services are also added as packages. A package can have different variants for different operating systems and platforms. Structure of Package Each package consists of two parts: the manifest and the body of the package. Manifest the file that contains the package description, its dependencies, system requirements and specifications for the processes of installing, uninstalling and upgrading the package. Note: The manifest file is distributed PGP signed. It is done this way to allow PEM "recognize" valid manifests. Therefore, the users are not allowed to modify the text of the manifest. Body the actual software piece that is installed or upgraded according to the information contained by its manifest.

30 Understanding PEM Concepts 30 Storing Packages Packages, or more accurately, the package manifests, are stored in the package repository. The package bodies can be stored at various locations: The package developer s location a location in the network where the package developer places the released packages available (possibly, with certain restrictions) to public. This location is specified in the package manifest. URL the package bodies can be stored at any other accessible location, for example at the local machine or at some special host in the network. PEM provides the options of keeping the list of URLs that specify such locations. Mirror also PEM allows to automatically set up a special package bodies storage location called the mirror. It is easily set up from the user interface on one of the hosts. The special service that provides the means of managing packages in PEM is called Plesk Package Management (PPM). For detailed information on packages storing refer to the Managing Packages (on page 127) chapter of this guide. Types of Packages There are four attributes that describe uniquely any package: Type SC (service controller) - the controller for managing the corresponding service CP (control panel) - the visual interface component for managing the corresponding service or service controller SERVICE - the actual software product PleskD - the system kernel, it is installed automatically during the initial installation process Other - a package that does not fit the above specifications Name Version Platform Architecture Operating System (OS) OS Version

31 Understanding PEM Concepts 31 Applications An application is a service that is definitely purposed, it functions by processing requests of specific types. For instance, the Apache web server is an application that processes the http-requests, ProFTPD is an application that provides the access to files over the Internet as well as means of exchanging files over the Internet, etc. The normal course of functioning of a service is living in the system by itself for the most part, while performing the appropriate functions. However, all services are subject to certain types of external influence they are installed and uninstalled, configured, started and stopped when necessary. PEM provides means of performing the above operations on applications. You can install application at a PEM hardware node and configure it through PEM interface. After that the application is functioning at that hardware node performing its tasks and continuing to stay under PEM control. The application can also be upgraded if newer versions are available. Presently, PEM supports the following applications: Apache one of the most popular web servers, represented by Apache package; MS IIS the popular Microsoft web server; Bind - the application responsible for managing the DNS zones, represented by package bind9; Logparser system component, represented by package logparser; MySQL the popular database server, represented by MySQL package; PgSQL - another database server represented by PgSQL package; MS SQL - another database server represented by MSSQL package; TSS the time synchronization application, represented by package ntp; Logrotate - the application aimed to rotate and store log files, represented by package logrotate; ProFTPD the FTP application, represented by package proftpd; QMail the mail management application, represented by package qmail; SpamAssassin - the application that serves to filter spam, represented by package spamassassin; DrWeb - an antivirus filtering program with a comprehensive database containing more than viruses. The application is represented by package dr_web filter. Applications are shown under the Applications tab of a hardware node or VPS they have been installed on. Managing applications includes the following types of operations: Installing/upgrading/uninstalling applications these operations are quite common for most components in PEM, not just applications. Starting/stopping applications the instructions on how to start and stop services you will find further in this chapter.