Hosting Features Available for Your Websites

Depending on your service plan, the following hosting features may be available for your websites (listed at the Account tab > subscription name > Hosting Options tab):

• SSL support. This allows you to secure connections to websites with SSL encryption.

  For information about securing sites with SSL, refer to the section Securing Connections with SSL Certificates.

• Web statistics. This allows you to view website visits statistics presented in diagrams and charts.

  For information about viewing website visits statistics, refer to the section Viewing Statistics.

• Custom error documents. This allows you to create custom HTML pages and configure web server to show them instead of typical error messages, such as 404 Not Found.

  For information about setting up custom error documents, refer to the section Setting Up Custom Error Pages.

• Support for programming and scripting languages, such as PHP, CGI, Perl, Python, Microsoft ASP, ASP.NET, SSI.
• Microsoft FrontPage support and Microsoft FrontPage over SSL support. These allow you to use Microsoft FrontPage to create and edit website content. These options are available only for Windows-based customer accounts.
• Remote Microsoft FrontPage authoring (Windows). This option allows you to use Microsoft FrontPage to create and edit website content directly on the server. This option is available only for Windows-based customer accounts.
• Dedicated IIS application pool (Windows). This option provides isolation and improved stability for web applications working on sites.
• Additional write/modify permissions (Windows). This option allows web applications to use a file-based database (like Jet) located in the root of the httpdocs or httpsdocs folder.
• Allow web users to use scripts. This allows scripting at web pages available at URLs like http://example.com/~<username>/<webpage>, where <username> refers to a web user. Web users are individuals who do not need their own domain names. This service is popular with educational institutions that host non-commercial personal pages of their students and staff.

The following is a list of permissions for operations that you can perform in your Plesk (shown at the Account tab > subscription name > Permissions tab):

• DNS zone management. Manage resource records in the DNS zones of websites. DNS stands for Domain Name System. It is a service that enables web browsers to locate websites by domain names.

  For information about configuring DNS settings for your websites, refer to the section (Advanced) Configuring DNS for a Domain.

• Hosting settings management. Manage web hosting settings, such as custom web server settings or support for scripting languages.
• Common PHP settings management. Adjust common PHP settings (such as safe_mode, open_basedir, and so on) for your websites.
• Management of access to the server over SSH and Management of access to the server over Remote Desktop. Securely upload web content to the server through Secure Shell (Linux) or a Remote Desktop connection (Windows).
• Anonymous FTP management. Set up a folder on the server which should be accessible to the Internet users over FTP protocol. This folder can have an address like, for example, ftp://downloads.example.com. This feature is called anonymous FTP because the users will not need to specify a username and password to browse, download, or upload files.

  For information about setting up FTP folder with unrestricted access, refer to the section Setting Up Anonymous FTP Access.

• Scheduler management. Schedule execution of programs or scripts in the server's operating system.

  For information about scheduling tasks, refer to the chapter Scheduling Tasks.

• Spam filter management. Set custom settings for protection from unsolicited commercial email, also known as spam.

  For information about setting up spam filtering, refer to the Protecting from Spam section.

• Antivirus management. Set custom settings for protection from viruses and other malicious software that spreads itself through email.

  For information about setting up virus protection, refer to the Protecting from Viruses section.

• Data backup and restoration using the server repository. Use the backup and restore functions of Plesk to back up and restore websites, mail accounts, settings, and keep your backup files on the server.

  For information about backing up and restoring data, refer to the chapter (Advanced) Back Up and Restore Data.

• Data backup and restoration using a personal FTP repository. Use the backup and restore functions of Plesk to back up and restore websites, mail accounts, settings, and save your backup files to an FTP folder on another server.

  For information about backing up and restoring data, refer to the chapter (Advanced) Back Up and Restore Data.

• Web statistics management. Set custom preferences for visitor statistics reports.

  For information about configuring and viewing website visitor statistics, refer to the section Viewing Statistics.

• Log rotation management. Set custom preferences for recycling (rotation) of web server logs. Web server records information about connections to your sites and errors occurred on attempts to retrieve missing files. You can use these log files for website debugging purposes.

  For information about working with web server access logs, refer to the section Log Files.

• Access to Application Catalog. View and install applications on websites. For information about applications, refer to the Web Applications section.
• Allow activating APS apps using license keys from the Plesk license pool. Install certain APS applications without the need to purchase application licenses. In this case, the license keys will be taken from the Plesk license pool.
• Access to WordPress Toolkit. Manage WordPress instances installed on your websites using a single management interface. For more information, refer to the WordPress Toolkit section.
• WordPress Toolkit security management. Manage the security options available in the WordPress Toolkit.
• Setup of potentially insecure web scripting options that override provider's policy. This allows you to override the hosting security policy, if it is applied by the provider.
• Domains management. Set up and manage new websites.

  For information about setting up websites, refer to the sections Set Up Your First Website and Adding Domains.

• Subdomains management. Set up and manage new websites with addresses like forum.example.com.

  For information about setting up subdomains, refer to the section Adding Subdomains.

• Domain aliases management. Set up and manage additional domain names for a site.

  For information about setting up domain aliases, refer to the chapter Adding Domain Aliases.

• Additional FTP accounts management. Set up and manage additional FTP accounts. To enable collaboration on website content, you can set up FTP accounts for other users and specify which directories of the site should be accessible to them.

  For information about setting up FTP accounts, see the section Adding FTP Accounts.

• Java applications management. Install and manage Java applications distributed in WAR archives and obtained separately from third-party vendors or application developers.

  For information about installing Java applications, refer to the section Installing Java Applications.

• Ability to change mail settings. Manage mail server settings, such as select the webmail client, or turn the mail service for a domain on or off.
• Mailing lists management. Set up and manage mailing lists.

  For information about setting up and using mailing lists, refer to the section Using Mailing Lists.

• Hosting performance settings management. Limit the bandwidth and number of connections to websites.

  For information about restricting bandwidth usage for sites, refer to the section Limiting Bandwidth and Number of Connections to Websites.

• IIS application pool management. Set custom preferences for IIS application pool (available only on Windows-based customer accounts).

  For information about setting up IIS application pool, refer to the section Setting Up IIS Application Pool (Windows).

• Additional write/modify permissions management. Set additional write/modify permissions for websites that use file-based databases (available only on Windows-based customer accounts).
• Shared SSL management. Secure connections to your sites with SSL protection by using an SSL certificate shared by your provider.

  For more information, refer to the section Using Shared SSL Certificates (Windows).

• Hard disk quota assignment. Adjust hard quotas on disk space if that is supported by your customer account.
• Database server selection. Select a database server for creating databases, if multiple database servers are available.
• Remote access for database users. Set up custom remote access control settings for database user accounts. For more information, see the Setting Up Custom Access Rules section.
• Access to advanced operations: Website Copying. Copy the content of one of your websites to another website or to an FTP repository. For more information, see the Working with a Staging Site section.
• Password-protected directories management. Protect one or more directories of your website with passwords. Visitors will be prompted for a password when they browse the protected directories. For more information, see the Restricting Access to Content section.
• Ability to manage auxiliary user accounts. Manage auxiliary user accounts. For more information, see the Managing Auxiliary User Accounts section.
• Additional write/modify permissions management (Windows). Grant full access rights on the httpdocs and httpsdocs folders to your system user.
• IIS application pool management (Windows). Switch a dedicated application pool for your website on or off, and set up the maximum amount of CPU power that the pool may use. For more information, see the Setting Up IIS Application Pool section.
• Shared SSL management (Windows). Switch on shared SSL for your websites. For more information, see the Using Shared SSL Certificates section.