With the arrival of Parallels Plesk Panel 11, infrastructure providers may questions on what is required to start offering Plesk 11 to their customers. This article is a brief overview of how to deploy Parallels Plesk Panel 11.
Deploying Parallels Plesk Panel 11
There are three main ways of deploying Parallels Plesk Panel which will be impacted in different ways by the Plesk 11 release:
- Installation using the Parallels Installer utility
- Installation using application templates (if you use Parallels Virtuozzo Containers (PVC))
- Cloning an image of your virtual machine (VM) with Plesk in a hypervisor virtualization solution (PSBM, Xen, Hyper-V, etc.)
Installation Using the Parallels Installer Utility
The Parallels Installer utility is commonly used to install and upgrade Parallels Plesk Panel on hardware servers, PVC containers, PSBM VMs and VMs of other hypervisor solutions. Typically, providers automate installation of Plesk with shell scripts that use Installer command-line options and Plesk command line interface (CLI) commands. All scripts working with Plesk 10 will keep working with Plesk 11 with minimal changes applied:
- One-click installer will enable installation of Plesk 11 starting on June 26th with no action required on the providers side
- Scripts based on Parallels Installer may need minimal updates depending on actual usage
A typical installation script would consist of downloading Parallels Installer and then launching it in unattended mode. For example, if installing on CentOS 5 x64 the script may look like this:
wget –O parallels_installer
chmod u+x ./parallels_installer
./parallels_installer –select-product-id plesk –select-release-latest –tier release,stable — installation-type typical
The script downloads Parallels Installer from Parallels.com and then executes it in unattended mode to install a typical configuration of latest available Plesk in “Release” or “Stable” phases. From June 26, 2012, it will install Parallels Plesk Panel 11. It won’t require any update. Some other scripts contain an exact version of Plesk – i.e. the last line of a script might look like this:
./parallels_installer –select-release-id PLESK_10_4_4 –installation-type typical
Such scripts will require a replacement of “–select-release-id PLESK_10_4_4” to the latest ID of Plesk 11 build – which currently is PLESK_11_0_9. If other similar constants were used, they will need to be updated as well.
An extensive set of the installation options and more examples of actual scripts can be found in the “Automated Installation” chapter of the Installation, Upgrade, Migration, and Transfer Guide.
Templates for Parallels Virtuozzo Containers (PVC)
For Parallels Virtuozzo Containers (PVC), Parallels ships special application templates that employ all of the benefits of the PVC software. There are two kinds of templates:
- Major-version templates, which correspond to a specific Plesk version, e.g., 10.x
- Version-free templates, which always install the latest Plesk version
Providers using Major-version templates will need to switch to Plesk 11 templates. The templates can be obtained either by using the vzup2date service of PVC, from the PVC Containers Templates Catalog, or from the Plesk download page.
Providers using version-free templates (introduced in Plesk 10) can keep using them. As of June 26, version-free templates will be associated with Parallels Plesk Panel 11.
Check out our documentation to learn more about using Plesk PVC templates.
Upgrading Plesk in a virtual machine is exactly the same process as for dedicated servers.
License keys
The majority of providers would prefer to deliver a license key into a fresh Plesk installation before offering it to an actual customer. Let’s look at the changes in this process enabled by the Plesk 11 release.
Previously, each new major version required a new license key – 7.x, 8.x, 9.0, 9.5. Updating them was inconvenient for providers. In Plesk 10, we introduced lease (paid monthly) license keys called “Parallels Plesk Panel 10 and Later” which will work for Plesk 10.x, 11.x and any future Plesk version.
Infrastructure providers deploying Plesk with “Parallels Plesk Panel 10 and Later” license keys won’t need any changes in licensing. These license keys will keep working in Plesk 11 for both upgraded instances and new installations.
There are also perpetual keys restricted to a specific Plesk version (i.e. perpetual key for 10.x were named «Parallels Plesk Panel 10»). If used, such keys must be replaced with “Parallels Plesk Panel 11” keys in provisioning procedures (i.e. PBAs solution for Plesk will support these license keys from version 4.2.0). On upgrade to Plesk 11, such license key will be automatically substituted with a perpetual license key for the newer version if they have valid and unexpired Software Update Service (SUS).
You may notice a small improvement in license keys shipment – Plesk 11 supports so-called Activation Codes, which are lines of symbols that are easy to copy-paste (for example, AX3Z00-CB3X10-ABCDE- ABCDE-RFBH49). This is faster and easier than uploading license key file. Plesk 11 supports both delivery methods – input of an Activation Code and uploading a license key file. So, all existing deployment procedures will work with Plesk 11 as well.
«Parallels Plesk Panel 10 and Later» keys will be shipped in both ways – a requestor will receive an Activation Code and a traditional license key file and can use either of them according to their choice. So, again, Plesk 11 does not require any changes in existing licensing procedures.
“Parallels Plesk Panel 11” keys – a requestor will receive an Activation Code only.
Summary
In most cases, infrastructure providers cancan start deploying Plesk 11 with minimal or no changes depending on a specific path used. If any changes are required, the guidance provided above should help to make required adjustments easier.