Plesk Extensions

Using extensions is another way of increasing the functionality of your Plesk. Extensions are functional components developed by Odin or third parties.

The extensions can be easily installed, removed, and configured directly from Plesk (the Extensions shortcut in the navigation pane).To install additional extensions, go to Extensions > Extensions Catalog, or visit the http://ext.plesk.com website. You can prohibit installation of particular extensions.

Extensions

Learn more about installing Plesk extensions in the Deployment Guide, in Installing Plesk Extensions.

  

Extensions Catalog

Extensions Catalog in the Plesk UI (Extensions > Extensions Catalog) represents the catalog that is found at http://ext.plesk.com.

You can disable the Extensions Catalog and remove the Extensions Catalog button from the Plesk GUI. To do so, open the file /usr/local/psa/admin/conf/panel.ini (on Linux) or C:\Program Files (x86)\Parallels\Plesk\admin\conf\panel.ini (on Windows) for editing (create the file if necessary) and add the following lines to it:

[extensions]
catalog.enabled = off

Plesk Installer

A number of extensions are also available directly from the Plesk Installer (available from the Plesk extensions section). Extensions installed using the Plesk Installer are checked every time Plesk is upgraded. Extensions that have updates available are updated automatically, and those that are not compatible with the version of Plesk being installed are removed.

Setting Up Automatic Upgrade of Extensions

To switch on or switch off automatic upgrade of Plesk extensions, go to Extensions > Settings and select Automatic upgrade of Plesk extensions.

Another way is to use the server_pref command-line utility. To switch off automatic upgrades, run:

plesk bin server_pref --update -disable-upgrade-extensions true

To switch on automatic upgrades, run:

plesk bin server_pref --update -disable-upgrade-extensions false

Plesk runs the maintenance task that checks for upgrades and automatically installs them. The task runs once a week. If you want to upgrade extensions manually before a week has passed from the previous check, use the corresponding link in Extensions > Settings.

It is important to keep all software installed on the server up-to-date. During the Plesk upgrade all installed extensions are checked for upgrades as well, and all available upgrades are installed automatically.

Some extensions may be incompatible with the latest version of Plesk and stop working after the upgrade, or even interfere with the Plesk operations. For that reason, during the Plesk upgrade all installed extensions are checked for compatibility with the version of Plesk being installed. All incompatible extensions are disabled automatically.

  

Manual Checking for Extension Upgrades

To manually check for upgrades for installed extensions, go to Extensions > Settings and click Check for upgrades now.

  

How to Prohibit the Installation of an Extension

To prohibit installation of one or more particular extensions, open the file /usr/local/psa/admin/conf/panel.ini (on Linux) or C:\Program Files (x86)\Parallels\Plesk\admin\conf\panel.ini (on Windows) for editing (create the file if necessary) and list the name aliases of these extensions in the [extensions] section. For example:

[extensions]
blacklist = "nat, aast-apf, dropbox-backup, route53"

Name aliases for certain extensions are displayed as part of extension URLs in the Extensions Catalog (http://ext.plesk.com). The URLs conform to the following pattern: https://ext.plesk.com/packages/<guid>-<package-name>, where <package-name> is a name alias. For example, the alias for NAT Manager is nat (https://ext.plesk.com/packages/90a20ade-9d3c-4ac5-82ea-20e8e0cd54de-nat).