Install Plesk on your server

What you will set up

Plesk is a control panel: from your browser, you create websites, install WordPress, manage mail and databases, and issue free certificates, without the command line.

Plesk is different from the apps in our other guides. It takes over the whole server and installs its own web, mail and DNS servers, so it needs a server of its own, freshly installed, and it runs as root. The installer comes with a full-featured trial for 14 days. After that, Plesk needs a licence, which you buy from Plesk.

Every step below was run on a fresh Melonslab VC-P Alloy (2 vCPU, 8 GB) with Debian 13:

• Plesk Obsidian 18.0.81 installed in about 20 minutes, and got a Let's Encrypt certificate for its own address by itself.
• Two websites got certificates and answered over both IPv4 and IPv6, once the IPv6 address was shared (step 5). WordPress was installed on one of them.
• Plesk's firewall blocked a port it had no rule for, and its DNS server refused to look up other domains for anyone on the internet.
• A message from a mailbox on one of the sites passed SPF, reverse DNS and DKIM at an external checker, and its reply arrived in the mailbox. From the internet, attempts to relay mail through the server were refused.
• A full backup of the server took about a minute.

With two sites, the server used about 1.1 GB of memory.

Before you start

You need:

• a fresh Melonslab server with Debian 13 and nothing else installed, with at least 2 GB of memory (Plesk's minimum is 1 GB plus swap);
• a name for the server, such as plesk.example.com, with an A record and an AAAA record pointing at it;
• reverse DNS for both of the server's addresses set to that name, if the server will send mail (step 7), as in step 2 of the Postfix guide.

Set up SSH keys as in steps 1 and 2 of the security guide, and skip its steps 3 and 4: Plesk installs updates itself, and step 4 here uses Plesk's own firewall instead of ufw.

The examples use plesk.example.com for the server and example.com for a website. Replace them with your own throughout.

1. Name the server

Plesk uses the server's name for its own address and its certificate. As root:

hostnamectl set-hostname plesk.example.com
sed -i "s/^127\.0\.1\.1.*/127.0.1.1 plesk.example.com plesk/" /etc/hosts
hostname -f

The last command prints plesk.example.com.

2. Install Plesk

apt update
apt install -y curl
sh <(curl https://autoinstall.plesk.com/one-click-installer || wget -O - https://autoinstall.plesk.com/one-click-installer)

This is Plesk's own one-click installer, with its recommended set of components. It took about 20 minutes on our test server. Keep the SSH session open until it finishes with Congratulations! and a link to your server with login?secret= in it. The link logs you in once, so keep it to yourself.

3. Finish the setup

Open the link. Plesk asks for:

• Contact Information: a name and an email address. Plesk sends notices about the server there.
• Password: the password for the admin user, which you log in with from now on.
• License: choose Proceed with a full-featured trial license. To issue it, WebPros, the company behind Plesk, uses the name and email you entered above.

Tick the box to accept the End-User License Agreement, and choose Enter Plesk. A banner at the top shows how many days of the trial are left. From now on, log in at https://plesk.example.com as admin.

4. Switch on the firewall

Plesk does not come with a firewall switched on, so every service it installs can be reached from the internet. Its own firewall is an extension. Install it as root:

plesk bin extension --install firewall

In Plesk, open Tools & Settings and then Firewall. Turn on Firewall protection, and choose Apply. Plesk's rules allow the services it runs, such as the web, mail and FTP servers and SSH, and block all other incoming traffic.

If a rule ever locks you out, the console in the client area still works. Log in there as root, and run plesk ext firewall --disable.

5. Give websites IPv6 too

Plesk registers the server's IPv6 address as a dedicated address, which no website uses by default. Every Melonslab server has IPv6, and the AAAA records point at it, so share the address:

• Open Tools & Settings, then IP Addresses, and choose the IPv6 address.
• Under The IP address is distributed as, choose Shared, and Save.

New websites still start with IPv6 set to None, so you pick it for each one in step 6. Without it, Let's Encrypt cannot check the site over IPv6, and Plesk reports that the domain has an AAAA record but no IPv6 address.

6. Add a website

First, point the domain at your server where its DNS is managed: an A record and an AAAA record for example.com. Then, in Plesk:

• Open Websites & Domains and choose Add Domain, then Blank website.
• Enter example.com as the Domain name.
• Open Webspace settings, and set IPv6 address to your server's IPv6 address.
• Choose Add Domain.

To give it a certificate, open the domain's Dashboard tab and choose SSL/TLS Certificates. Next to Install a free basic certificate provided by Let's Encrypt, choose Install, then Get it free. The certificate is issued within a minute and renews by itself. Plesk already sends visitors from HTTP to HTTPS.

Put your files in the site's httpdocs folder, from Files in Plesk, or over FTP with the details under Connection Info for FTP, Database on the domain's dashboard.

For WordPress, open WordPress in the menu on the left, and choose Install. Pick the domain under Installation path, and choose Install. WP Toolkit fills in the rest, including a generated password for the WordPress admin, which it shows before you install.

7. Set up mail

Port 25 is open on every Melonslab server from the first boot, and each site in Plesk can have mail. Check that reverse DNS for both addresses is set to plesk.example.com, then:

• Give the mail server a certificate. Open Tools & Settings, then SSL/TLS Certificates. Next to Certificate for securing mail, choose Change, pick Lets Encrypt certificate (server pool), and choose OK. Until then, the mail server uses Plesk's own certificate, which mail apps warn about.
• Publish the DNS records. Plesk creates them in its own DNS zone for the domain, under Hosting & DNS and DNS. If your domain's DNS is managed elsewhere, create the same records there: the A and AAAA records for mail.example.com, the MX record, the SPF record (a TXT record on example.com), the DKIM key at default._domainkey.example.com, and the DMARC record at _dmarc.example.com.
• Create a mailbox. Open Mail and choose Create Email Address. Enter a name such as anna, pick the domain, set a password, and choose OK.

In mail apps, use plesk.example.com as the server, which is the name on the certificate, with the full address, anna@example.com, as the user name:

To check it, send a message to check-auth@verifier.port25.com. Its report arrives within a minute and should show SPF check: pass, "iprev" check: pass and DKIM check: pass.

These steps are for your own mail, your company's mail and mail from your websites. Newsletters and other high-volume sending need an arrangement with our sales team first.

8. Back up

Open Tools & Settings and then Backup Manager. Back Up saves the whole server, with every site, database and mailbox, and Schedule makes it run by itself. A backup that stays on the server does not help if the server is lost, so under Remote Storage Settings, set up FTP(S) to another machine. Other storage types, such as SFTP, are paid extensions.

9. After the trial

Before the trial ends, choose Buy License in the banner, or Already have a license? to enter an activation code you have bought from Plesk. Your sites and settings stay as they are.

Troubleshooting

Let's Encrypt fails with "contains an AAAA record, but the domain is not assigned an IPv6 address". The site has no IPv6 address. Do step 5, then choose Hosting & DNS, Hosting, set IPv6 address, and Save. Then get the certificate again.

Visitors see a certificate warning. The site is still using Plesk's own certificate. Get a free one as in step 6.

You cannot reach Plesk after switching on the firewall. Log in on the console in the client area, and run plesk ext firewall --disable. Then check the rule Plesk administrative interface in step 4.