How To Troubleshoot Plesk Control Panel

How To Troubleshoot Plesk Control Panel:
Plesk control panel is a web hosting platform which allows system administers to create and manage websites, DNS entries, and e-mail accounts through a web-based interface.
But, how can we manage these if the Plesk control panel is broken?

“We cannot solve our problems with the same level of thinking that created them”
– Albert Einstein

Plesk control panel can be broken due to many issues. First, we need to troubleshoot and resolve any issues with the control panel before troubleshooting the websites and mail accounts.
The common issues and its solutions are as follows:
In Plesk windows, the installation comes with a utility called “Plesk Reconfigurator”. We can solve most of the control panel issues by using the “Plesk Reconfigurator Utility”. Plesk Reconfigurator can be found by searching it on “Start Menu” as below.

1. Broken Permissions on Plesk System Directories

This issue may show different symptoms like the following:
a. “Unable to execute…” in Plesk when creating subscriptions or managing server-wide settings via Plesk control panel.
b. “401- Unauthorized…” instead of Plesk login page
c. “500- Internal Server Error” shows instead of Plesk login page or performing some operations in Plesk panel.
Solution:
1. Open “Plesk Reconfigurator” and click “Repair Plesk Installation”

2. Select “Plesk File Security” and Click “Check” on the bottom right-hand side

3. Navigate to the main window again and click on “Correct Disk Permissions” as below

4. Select the drive which Plesk is installed on.

This process will apply appropriate permissions for system directories.

2. Broken Plesk ControlPanel IIS website

This issue occurs when the configuration of the control panel or application pool is corrupted or damaged. It may show a variety of errors like 401.403,404, 500 etc.
Solution:
1. Open Plesk Reconfigurator and Click “Repair Plesk Installation”

2. Select “Plesk Services” as shown below and click “Check”

This will reconfigure appropriate Plesk Services and configuration files.

3. Broken Plesk Management Service

Management Service is the core service of Plesk panel Backend. If the service is down, you may face errors like “Unable to get administrator password….” Or “Unable to connect to pipe…” These errors can be fixed using Plesk Reconfigurator
Solution:
1. Open Plesk Reconfigurator and Click “Repair Plesk Installation”

2. Select “Plesk Services” and click “Check”

4. Broken Groups and User Accounts

Plesk Control Panel Back-end uses a whole lot for users and groups to divide different subsystems and provide better security. Some of them are shown below
a. Psaadm : User for PleskControlPanel application pool
b. Plesk Administrator : Admin user for safely managing plesk tasks
c. IUSRPLESK_* : A collection of users for plesk subsystems like webmail
interfaces, database management tools etc
d. IWAM_FILESHARING : User for file sharing application pool identity
e. IWAM_sitepreview : User for SitePreview application pool identity.
f. All of the above users must be present in the system and be a part of the
necessary groups. Otherwise it may cause permission denied error.
Solution:
1. Open “Plesk Reconfigurator” and click “Repair Plesk Installation”

2. Select “Plesk Server Accounts” as shown below and click “Check

Conclusion
By following these steps, you can fix most of the control panel issues. But in some extreme cases, Plesk Reconfigurator cannot help much. In such cases, we have to use some terminal commands belonging to the Plesk system services.

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