Plesk

How to use Microsoft SQL Server Management Studio

This article describes how to use Microsoft SQL Server Management Studio with your Windows Hosting account. CREATING A MICROSOFT SQL SERVER ACCOUNT Before you can use SQL Server Management Studio, you must first create a SQL Server account in Plesk. To do this, follow these steps: Log in to Plesk. In the left sidebar, click Databases. In the right sidebar, click User Management: On the Database Users page, click Add Database User: 1. On the Adding Database User page, in the Database server list box, select the SQL cluster server for your account: 5. In the Database user name text box, type a username.  6. In the New password and Confirm password text boxes, type a password for the new user. Alternatively, you can click Generate and Plesk generates a random, strong password for you. (Make sure you click Show so you can see what the password is!) 7. In the Database list box, select Any. 8. Click OK. ACCESSING YOUR MICROSOFT SQL SERVER MANAGMENT STUDIO ACCOUNT After you create a Microsoft SQL Server account in Plesk, you are ready to connect to it using SQL Server Management Studio. To do this, follow these steps: Start Microsoft SQL Server Management Studio. On the File menu, click Connect Object Explorer. The Connect to Server dialog box appears: In the Server type list box, select Database Engine. In the Server name text box, type the name of the SQL cluster server for your account. In the Authentication list box, select SQL Server Authentication. In the Login text box, type the Microsoft SQL Server username you created in the previous procedure. In the Password text box, type the password for the Microsoft SQL Server username you created in the previous procedure. If you do not want to re-type the password every time you connect to the server, select the Remember password check box. Click Connect. After a few seconds SQL Server Management Studio connects to the server. Click the plus (+) sign next to Databases to expand the view, and then click the plus (+) sign next to your username to view the objects in your account.
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Using External Mail Servers in Plesk

If you need to configure an external mail server to handle mail for your domain, do the following:   Go to Mail, open the Mail Settings tab. Click the checkbox next to the domain for which you need to configure external mail server, click Activate/Deactivate Services. Select Disable from the menu, and click OK. Go to the Websites & Domains tab, find the domain name whose DNS settings you want to manage, and click DNS Settings. Click the hyperlink in the Host column corresponding to the MX resource record. Type the domain name of your external mail server into the Mail exchange server field. If you are running a remote mail server named ‘mail.myhostname.com’, type ‘mail.myhostname.com’. Specify the external mail server priority, where 0 is the highest and 50 is the lowest. Click OK, and then click Update
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Protection Against Brute Force Attacks (Fail2Ban)

IP address banning (Fail2Ban) is an automated way to protect your server from brute force attacks. Fail2Ban uses regular expressions to monitor log files for patterns corresponding to authentication failures and other errors that are considered suspicious. If an IP address makes too many login attempts within a time interval defined by the administrator, this IP address is banned for a certain period of time. Fail2Ban can also update firewall rules and send email notifications. When the ban period is over, the IP address is automatically unbanned. Note: To use Fail2Ban, administrators who upgrade from Plesk 11.5 must obtain a new license key for Plesk 12 from Odin or their vendor. To set up Plesk to automatically ban IP addresses and networks that generate malicious traffic: Go to Tools & Settings > IP Address Banning (Fail2Ban) (in the Security group). The Fail2Ban component has to be installed on your server. Select the Enable intrusion detection checkbox. Specify the following settings: IP address ban period – the time interval in seconds for which an IP address is banned. When this period is over, the IP address is automatically unbanned. Time interval for detection of subsequent attacks – the time interval in seconds during which the system counts the number of unsuccessful login attempts and other unwanted actions from an IP address. Number of failures before the IP address is banned – the number of failed login attempts from the IP address.      4. Click OK. Now all active Fail2Ban jails will be used to monitor the log files and to ban suspicious IP addresses. Fail2Ban in Plesk has the following limitations and peculiarities: Fail2Ban must not be restarted manually as a Plesk service, since all accumulated statistics data, including currently banned IP addresses, will be lost. Fail2Ban does not provide protection against attackers with an IPv6 address. Fail2ban in Plesk relies solely on IPs (without hostname lookups) unless reconfigured. Fail2Ban cannot protect from distributed brute force attacks, since it identifies intruders by their IP address. If you have your Plesk installed on a VPS, the VPS iptables records limit (numiptent) might affect the work of Fail2Ban. When this limit is exceeded, Fail2Ban will stop working properly and in the Fail2Ban log you will find a line such as:fail2ban.actions.action: ERROR iptables -I fail2ban-plesk-proftpd 1 -s 12.34.56.78 -j REJECT --reject-with icmp-port-unreachable returned 100In this case, contact your VPS hosting provider to solve the issue. If you had Fail2Ban installed on your server before upgrading to Plesk 12, the package will be replaced by Plesk’s Fail2Ban package. If your already installed package is newer than the one provided with Plesk, the upgrade might fail. Existing jails will not be overwritten and you can manage them in Plesk together with Plesk 12 jails. If an IP address should not be blocked: Go to Tools & Settings > IP Address Banning (Fail2Ban) > Trusted IP Addresses > Add Trusted IP. In the IP address field, provide an IP address, an IP range, or a DNS host name, and click OK. You can view and download Fail2Ban log files in Tools & Settings > IP Address Banning (Fail2Ban) > the Logs tab. You can view the list of banned IP addresses, unban them, or move them to the list of trusted addresses in Tools & Settings > IP Address Banning (Fail2Ban) > the Banned IP Addresses tab. You can view the list of IP addresses that will never be banned, add IP addresses to and remove from this list in Tools & Settings > IP Address Banning (Fail2Ban) > the Trusted IP Addresses tab.
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Securing WordPress in Plesk 12.5

To check and secure WordPress installations: Go to Websites & Domains > WordPress. Do one of the following: To check the security of all WordPress installations, click Check Security. To secure a single WordPress installation, click the icon in the S column next to the name of the desired WordPress installation. To secure two or more WordPress installations, select the checkboxes for the corresponding WordPress installations, then click Check Security. Select the checkboxes corresponding to the security improvements you want to apply, then click Secure.   Caution: Keep in mind that not all security improvements can be rolled back. It is recommended to back up the corresponding subscription before securing WordPress installations. The complete list of WordPress security improvements The wp-content folder. The wp-content directory may contain insecure PHP files that can be used to damage your site. After WordPress installation, PHP files can be executed from the wp-content directory. The security check verifies that the execution of PHP files in thewp-content directory is forbidden. Note that custom directives in the .htaccess or web.config files might override this security measure. Also note that some of your plugins might stop working after securing the wp-content folder. The wp-includes folder. The wp-includes directory may contain insecure PHP files that can be used to damage your site. After WordPress installation, PHP files can be executed from the wp-includes directory. The security check verifies that the execution of PHP files in thewp-includes directory is forbidden. Note that custom directives in the .htaccess or web.config files might override this security measure. Also note that some of your plugins might stop working after securing the wp-includes folder. The configuration file. The wp-config.php file contains credentials for database access and other sensitive information. After WordPress installation, the wp-config.php file can be executed. If, for some reason, processing of PHP files by the web server is turned off, hackers can access the content of the wp-config.php file. The security check verifies that unauthorized access to the wp-config.phpfile is blocked. Note that custom directives in the .htaccess or web.config files might override this security measure. Directory browsing permissions. If directory browsing is turned on, hackers can obtain information about your site (what plugins you use and so on). By default, directory browsing is turned off in Plesk. The security check verifies that directory browsing on the WordPress installation is turned off. Database prefix. WordPress database tables have the same names in all WordPress installations. When the standard wp_ database table name prefix is used, the whole WordPress database structure is not a secret and anyone can obtain any data from it. The security check changes the database table name prefix to something other than wp_. The maintenance mode is turned on, all plugins are deactivated, the prefix is changed in the configuration file, the prefix is changed in the database, the plugins are re-activated, the permalink structure is refreshed, and then the maintenance mode is turned off. Security keys. WordPress uses security keys (AUTH_KEY, SECURE_AUTH_KEY, LOGGED_IN_KEY, and NONCE_KEY) to encrypt information stored in the user’s cookies. A good security key should be long (60 characters or longer), random and complicated. This security check verifies that the security keys are set up and that they at least contain both alphabetic and numeric characters. Permissions for files and directories. If permissions for files and directories do not comply with the security policy, these files can be used to hack your site. After WordPress installation, files and directories can have various permissions. The security check verifies that the permissions for the wp-config.php file are set to 600, for other files to 644, and for directories to 755. Administrator’s username. When a WordPress copy is installed, by default there is a user with administrative privileges and the username admin. As a user’s username cannot be changed in WordPress, one only needs to guess the password to access the system as the administrator. The security check verifies that there is no user with the administrative privileges and the username admin. Version information. There are known security vulnerabilities for each WordPress version. For this reason, displaying the version of your WordPress installation makes it an easier target for hackers. The version of an unprotected WordPress installation can be seen in the pages’ meta data and readme.html files. The security check verifies that all readme.html files are empty and that every theme has afunctions.php file which contains the line: remove_action(\'wp_head\', \'wp_generator\');.
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How to create custom error pages in Plesk

This article describes how to create custom error pages in Plesk for your web sites. For example, if users enter an incorrect URL or are not authorized to access specific directories, they see an error page. Companies often customize error pages by branding them with a corporate image and a link to their home page, or with other custom content. STEP 1: CREATE THE CUSTOM ERROR PAGE To create content for the custom error page, you can use the Plesk File Manager. In the File Manager, you can create a new file and edit it directly on the web server. Alternatively, you can use the text editor of your choice to create the custom error page on your local computer, and then upload the file to your account. STEP 2: ENABLE THE CUSTOM ERROR PAGE To enable the custom error page, follow these steps: Log in to Plesk. In the left sidebar, click Websites & Domains: Locate the domain for which you want to create a custom error page, and then click Virtual Directories: Click the Error Documents tab. Locate the error condition that you want to modify, and then click it. On the Edit Error Document page, in the Type list box, select one of the following: Default: For this option, the site uses the Windows IIS default error page. File: For this option, the specified file must already exist in the error_docs directory. URL: For this option, the error document must be in a directory other than error_docs. In the Location text box, type the filename or URL for the custom error page. Click OK.
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How to remove password protection from the site statistics page

By default, Plesk requires users to authenticate before they can view the statistics page for a website or domain. If you want, however, you can remove password protection from the statistics page. REMOVING PASSWORD PROTECTION: To remove password protection from the site statistics page for a website or domain, follow these steps: Log in to Plesk In the left sidebar, click Websites & Domains: Locate the domain you want to configure, and then click Hosting Settings:   On the Hosting Settings page, scroll down to the Web scripting and statistics section: Clear the (Protect access to your web statistics with your FTP username and password) check box. Click OK. Users can now view the statistics page without typing a username or password.
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How to create/modify SPF records for domain in Plesk?

Create or Modify SPF records in Plesk By default, Plesk has the following SPF record preconfigured out-of-the-box: example.com TXT v=spf1 +a +mx +a:server.example.com -all The parts of this record mean the following: Part Description v=spf1 The domain uses SPF of the version 1. +a All the hosts from the “A” records are authorized to send mail. +mx All the hosts from the “MX” records are authorized to send mail. +a:server.example.com The domain server.example.com is authorized to send mail. -all All other domains are not authorized to send mail.   If it is necessary to modify the record, use the steps below: Log into Plesk. Go to Domains > example.com > DNS Settings. Click on the domain’s name in the record and modify the record as required:
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How to enable DKIM in Plesk?

How to enable DKIM (spam protection)  in Plesk? Log into Plesk. Go to Tools & Settings > Mail Server Settings > DKIM spam protection section. Enable the Allow signing outgoing mail or/and Verify incoming mail (For Plesk on Linux only) and press the OK button: Verify incoming mail (Plesk for Linux). This option switches on DKIM checking for all incoming mail. All messages are checked, and if the check fails, are marked with a special header. Allow signing outgoing mail. This option enables customers to switch on the DKIM signing of outgoing mail on a per-domain basis. Warning:  It does not automatically enable the signing of outgoing email messages. To use DKIM, users must switch it on for individual domains
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How to Manage Users in Plesk

This article describes how to create and manage users for a Plesk account. User accounts enable you to grant access to specific people. These people can then access Plesk to manage websites, applications, or e-mail under your domains. To create a user in Plesk, follow these steps: Log in to Plesk. In the left sidebar, click Users: On the Users page, click Create User Account. On the Create User Account page, under General Information, in the Contact name text box, type a name for the contact. In the Email address text box, type the e-mail address of the user. In the User role list box, select the user role you want to assign to the user. In the Access to subscriptions list box, select the subscription or subscriptions to which you want the user to have access. Under Plesk Preferences, in the Username text box, type a username for the user. In the Password and Confirm password text boxes, type a password for the user. In the Plesk language list box, select the language for the user. Confirm the User is active check box is selected. Click OK. Plesk creates the user. MANAGING A USER To manage an existing user on your Plesk account, follow these steps: Log in to Plesk In the left sidebar, click Users: On the Users page, click the name of the user you want to manage. On the user account page, click Change Settings. Change the settings you want to modify, and then click OK. Plesk updates the user account. REMOVING A USER You can remove an existing user at any time if you no longer want them to have access to your account. To do this, follow these steps: Log in to Plesk. In the left sidebar, click Users: On the Users page, select the check box next to the name of the user you want to remove. Click Remove, and then click Yes. Plesk deletes the user account.
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