Introduction

Although Plesk's GUI affords the administrators complete control of the routine server hosting configuration needs, the hosting management capabilities provided by Plesk are not limited to Plesk functionality available to users through its GUI. Plesk administrators can use several additional tools that are supplied in the standard Plesk distribution package to add customized automation tasks, optimize Plesk server performance, and repair Plesk components and system settings. The tools include a number of standalone Windows applications, Plesk public API, utility programs, and the ability to integrate custom scripting with Plesk. (To learn about additional Plesk capabilities afforded by public API and creation utilities, Plesk administrators are advised to consult Plesk SDK documentation.) The tools together with the Plesk's ability to manage various third-party components allow administrators to customize their Plesk installations in an unlimited number of ways. However, the more complex a system becomes, the more potential is there for incongruities and conflicts between its components. Plesk GUI cannot possibly provide means to address all potential problems arising because of this. But that does not mean that the problems are not solvable. The Plesk tools provide effective means to diagnose and troubleshoot problems on Plesk servers.

The purpose of this guide is not to describe all possible uses of the tools, but rather describe advanced user tasks that administrators may need to perform when troubleshooting problems on Plesk servers running in a non-standard configuration.