ServerBuddies Support Blog

Using SFTP(Secure FTP) in Plesk

Secure FTP is more secure than FTP since it uses the SSH protocol. Shell access must be enabled for each Plesk user for each account.

In the setup page select /bin/bash(chrooted) under the Shell access to server with FTP user’s credentials. This user will now be able to login over SFTP. Remember to change the port in your FTP client. If you are sure you don’t want users to login over standard FTP you can also block this port via the Firewall module in Plesk

The following rules would apply:

You can further secure your FTP server if you have a static IP by allowing access only from that IP. If the static IP is 10.1.1.2 your rules would be:

Remove MailMan from Plesk

Login to your Dedicated-Virtual Server using SSH as the root user. Now lets run the command to find what version of mailman is currently installed.

You should find results similar to the following

Now we will use rpm to uninstall

Enable Mailman in Plesk

The following steps will show you how to enable Mailman.

1. Login to Plesk.
2. Click on Server.
3. Click on Set Up Mailman.
4. Configure Mailman by providing the Mailing list administrator’s email and password.
5. Once you hit OK you should be taken back to the server page with the message letting you know that the Mailman icon will no longer be accessible.

For information on using Mailman please visit http://www.gnu.org/software/mailman/index.html

How can I lower the TTL value in Plesk?

1. Login to Plesk.
2. Click on Domains.
3. Click on the domain for which you wish to lower your TTL.
4. Click on DNS Settings.
5. Click on SOA Record.
6. Set the desired TTL value.

TTL, or Time-to-Live, is the length of time for when a zone file is set to expire. This is usually expressed in number of seconds.

If you ask your local DNS server (usually provided by your ISP) for an Internet address, the server will figure out where to find an authoritative answer. Once provided the answer, it will keep the answer in a local cache so that if you, or someone else, ask for the same address again it will not need to make the request again.

When domain administrators configure their DNS records, they decide how long the records should remain in remote caches. Typically, a remote server will only cache those records for the length of time specified by the TTL. After that, the remote server will remove the zone file from its local cache and ask again for an authoritative answer. Due to this, shorter TTLs can cause heavier loads on an authoritative nameserver.

How to set up one domain to be your DNS in Plesk

You must first have the domain you wish to make your DNS already set up in Plesk. You will also need at least 2 IP’s to use for your server. For reference, in this article ’serverbuddies.com’ will refer to the domain name you are using. Make sure to replace this with your actual domain name.

1. Log into your Plesk control panel as Administrator and select the domain from the Domains list you wish to make DNS.
2. Select the DNS icon from your services list.
3. Select the link serverbuddies.com from the Host list, with Record Type NS and Value ns.serverbuddies.com
4. In the Enter nameserver field change the ns.serverbuddies.com to ns1.serverbuddies.com and select OK.
5. From the Tools area select Add Record. For Record type select NS and enter ns2.serverbuddies.com in the Enter nameserver field and select OK.
6. Select from your host list ns.serverbuddies.com with Record type A and change the value to ns1 and select OK.
7. From the Tools area select Add Record again. For Record type leave as A, in the Enter domain name add ns2, in the Enter IP address enter your second IP address that you are going to use and select OK.
8. You should now have 2 Record types with the NS value of ns1.serverbuddies.com and ns2.serverbuddies.com and under the Host list you will also have ns1.serverbuddies.com and ns2.serverbuddies.com with the Record type of A and they will have 2 separate IP’s.

In order to have these added as DNS values for when you add new domains you will need to change the default DNS record in Plesk.

1. Select Server from the list on your left.
2. Select the DNS icon from the Services list.
3. From the Host list select with record type NS and enter ns1.serverbuddies.com in the Enter nameserver field and select OK.
4. From the Tools area select Add New Record. Change the Record type to NS and in the Enter nameserver field input ns2.serverbuddies.com and select OK.

If you want to use 2 separate domains for your DNS this is even easier, because Plesk has already created this for you. You must have 2 domains entered in Plesk and assigned separate IP’s. You would then only need to create a DNS zone template the same way described earlier, only inputting ns1.serverbuddies.com and ns2.serverbuddies.com for your default values.

Reference: http://parallels.com/