Plesk

About this Module

The Plesk module allows you to add and manage Plesk servers in WHMCS.

This module is compatible with Plesk versions 11, 11.5, 12, 12.5, Onyx, and Obsidian.
You can also use single sign-on with Plesk.

Plesk Onyx

Plesk Onyx is the next release of the Plesk Web Hosting Control Panel following Plesk 12.5.

First released as a preview towards the end of 2016, Plesk Onyx is the first release of Plesk following the introduction of their new product naming convention and dropping of version numbers.

However, fundamentally Plesk Onyx is still Plesk, and is compatible with WHMCS using the Plesk module.

Supported Features

Create	Suspend	Unsuspend	Terminate
Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes

Change Package	Change Password	Usage Updates	Client Area Link
Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes

The following ports should be open for outbound connections from your WHMCS server: 8443

Adding a Plesk Server

To set up a Plesk server in WHMCS:

Go to Configuration () > System Settings > Servers or, prior to WHMCS 8.0, Setup > Products/Services > Servers.
Click Add New Server.
Select Plesk from the menu.
Enter the hostname or IP address.
Enter a username and password.
Click Test Connection.
Enter the desired additional server details.
Click Save Changes.
If this is the only Plesk server that is currently in WHMCS, click on the name and ensure that it results in an asterisk (*) next to it. This indicates that it is the default to use when any other non-specific configuration doesn't apply.

For more information, see Creating Your First Plesk Server.

Creating a Plesk Product

You can create a product that provisions accounts on your Plesk server at Configuration () > System Settings > Products/Services or, prior to WHMCS 8.0, Setup > Products/Services > Products/Services.

Configurable Options

If you set up configurable options, you will also use Plesk's Panel Addons. This Plesk feature is not part of WHMCS's product addon system.
A friendly name can be assigned to configurable options in order to display a different name to clients. This is sometimes preferable to displaying the system value as it appears inside Plesk. For more information, see Friendly Display Names.

Plesk Panel Addons

WHMCS Plesk Configurable Options

WHMCS Plesk Bandwidth Configurable Options

To create configurable options that attach Plesk's Panel Addons to your Plesk products:

Go to Configuration () > System Settings > Configurable Options or, prior to WHMCS 8.0, Setup > Products/Services > Configurable Options.
Perform one of the following actions:
- Click the Edit icon for an existing group.
- Click Create a New Group, configure the group name, description, and assigned products, and then click Save Changes.
Click Add New Configurable Option.
Enter an option name using the Plesk Panel-Addon-Name name format, replacing Panel-Addon-Name with the exact name that displays in Plesk for that Plesk Panel Addon. For example:
- In the Plesk Panel Addons image above, one of the configured Panel Addons is Extra Bandwidth, with resources of 5GB or 10GB.
- In WHMCS in the WHMCS Plesk Configurable Options image above, this is Plesk Extra Bandwidth.
- In the WHMCS Plesk Bandwidth Configurable Options image above, 10GB Extra Bandwidth and 5GB Extra Bandwidth are set to ensure that the bandwidth options in Plesk and WHMCS match.
  We recommend that you set the first option to None or a similar value. When you do this, ensure that the Panel Addon uses a value of 0. This gives the user the ability to choose not to have any additional values per option.
Select Yes/No or Dropdown as the Option Type setting.
Enter the desired options and display order.
Click Save Changes.
Create each desired additional option.
Click Close Window.
Select the desired products in the Assigned Products list.
Click Save Changes.
Go to Configuration () > System Settings > Products/Services or, prior to WHMCS 8.0, Setup > Products/Services > Products/Services.
Edit the desired product or service.
In the Configurable Options tab, select the desired options.
Click Save Changes.

Dedicated IP Address

To create configurable options that provision a dedicated IP address, use either or both of these exact names when you create configurable options:

Dedicated IPv4
Dedicated IPv6

Select Yes/No from the Option Type menu for these options.

Overriding Overage Billing Soft Limits with Configurable Options

When using configurable options to override the soft limits for overage billing on a Plesk product, you must create a config.ini file in the /modules/servers directory with the following contents:

;WHMCS Plesk Provisioning Module Config File
skip_addon_prefix = true

After you create this file, ensure that you have configured Disk Space and Bandwidth configurable options using our Custom Fields and Configurable Options documentation. This will ensure that the overrides function correctly.

Add-On Features

In WHMCS 8.2 and later, in addition to WHMCS's existing product addon functionality (now an Independent Product), you can create an Add-On Feature. These addons let you sell module-specific features that are available through cPanel & WHM and Plesk, like WP Toolkit or, in WHMCS 8.10 and later, Sitejet Builder.

For more information and steps to create an addon, see Product Addons.

Reseller Packages

When creating a reseller package, create the service plan on your Plesk server in the Reseller Plans tab at Hosting Services > Service Plans.

When you configure the product in WHMCS, use the following settings:

In the Details tab, set the Product Type setting to Reseller Account.
In the Module Settings tab, set the Service Plan Name and Reseller Plan Name settings.

Creating a reseller account will not create a shared hosting space for the reseller's website. After account creation, the reseller can log in to Plesk and set up their own hosting space.

Metric Billing

We added metric billing for Plesk in WHMCS 8.5.

You can bill clients for their use of individual items like databases or bandwidth. You can choose whether to include a certain amount in the base price and only charge for exceeding a certain limit, offer tiered pricing, or charge for every unit of an item.

You can configure metric billing in the Metric Billing tab.

When a client orders this product, WHMCS will track the account's use of the items you configured. On the service's Next Due Date, the system will record that period's usage and add the cost to the service's renewal invoice.

For more information, see Usage Billing.

Log in to Plesk

When you click Log in to Plesk in the Client Area or Admin Area, WHMCS bases its actions on the server hostname if it is available. If it is not, WHMCS uses the IP address.

The use of http and https login links depends on the Secure setting in your server's configuration.

WHMCS Connect

WHMCS Connect allows you and your administrators to quickly and easily access the control panels of all the servers configured in your WHMCS installation that support Single Sign-On, enabling you and your staff to administer and make changes without ever needing to re-authenticate.

For more information, see WHMCS_Connect.

Troubleshooting

The client account is getting setup but the domain is not

This is usually due to the permissions of the domain template exceeding the server resources or containing something unsupported (for example, ColdFusion). Always test whether your domain template works directly in Plesk after setting it up.

I get a blank command error from WHMCS when it tries to setup an account

This can occur if your firewall is blocking connections on port 8443. You need to open it on both the server WHMCS is on and the server WHMCS is connecting to for inbound and outbound connections.

With accounts created on my Plesk server from WHMCS the www. subdomain doesn't work

This happens due to the default DNS settings on a Plesk server and the requirement to check a box when creating an account to enable it.

To avoid that, simply follow the steps below.

Log in to Plesk.
Click Server.
Click DNS Settings.
Click Add New Record.
Choose CNAME under the record type.
Enter www in Enter Domain Name.
Enter <domain> in Enter Canonical Name.
Click OK to complete the changes.

Page not Found/Timeout/502 Bad Gateway error creating accounts

By default, Plesk performs a forced restart of Apache when an account is created or suspended. This causes WHMCS to lose connection to the server, and, if WHMCS is on the same server, you will also lose connection to WHMCS.

To resolve this, see Plesk's support article.

503 Service Temporarily Unavailable error creating accounts

By default, Plesk performs a forced restart of Apache when an account is created or suspended. This causes WHMCS to lose connection to the server, and, if WHMCS is on the same server, you will also lose connection to WHMCS.

To resolve this, see Plesk's support article.

Unable to create account in Panel. The field 'username' is required.

This means the username under the client's Products/Services tab is empty.

Enter a username, save changes, and try module creation again. Then, ensure that Require Domains is enabled for the product at Configuration () > System Settings > Products/Services or, prior to WHMCS 8.0, Setup > Products/Services.

0 - Unable to find appropriate manager for this version of Panel. Plesk should be at least 8.0 version

This is a generic error message that the Plesk module returns. For example, it could indicate a connection error or invalid credentials.

To identify the underlying error that is occurring, check the Module Log at Configuration () > System Logs or, prior to WHMCS 8.0, Utilities > Logs > Module Log. Enable it, reproduce the error, disable it again, and the 'Response column will show the underlying error.

For more information, see Troubleshooting_Module_Problems.

1006 - Permission denied

This indicates that your Plesk login doesn't have the necessary permissions to use the API. You need the server administrator to grant your Plesk reseller account the Ability to use remote API permission.

1013 - Template does not exist

This error message is coming directly from the Plesk API and indicates that the client and domain template names are incorrect or missing. You can correct these in the product's Module Settings tab.

1013 - Error message: Customer with email 'johndoe@example.com' is not found in panel

There are two potential causes of this error message:

Incorrect product type

The product type is set incorrectly in WHMCS (for example, a reseller plan is configured as a shared hosting product in WHMCS).

To resolve this:

Log in to WHMCS Admin Area.
Navigate to Configuration () > System Settings > Products/Services or, prior to WHMCS 8.0, Setup > Products/Services > Products/Services.
Set Product Type to Shared Hosting or Reseller Hosting to match the Plesk plan type.
Click Save Changes.

Missing data from a table inside Plesk

If the error persists after following the Incorrect product type steps above, see this article.

1013 - Error message: Customer with external id 'xxxxxxxx' is not found in panel

Refer to the solution for 1013 - Error message: Customer with email 'johndoe@example.com' is not found in panel above.

1014 - Parser error: Request is invalid

This error message indicates there is a field value missing. This is most commonly caused by having no assigned IP addresses in the client or domain template's IP pool.

1014 - Parser error: Cannot parse the XML from the source specified

The Plesk API only supports the characters a-z and 0-9. If the client's profile contains accents or other characters, it will cause account creation to fail. Edit the client's profile to remove these characters.

1018 - Unable to create hosting. IP address does not exist in client's pool

This error indicates that there is an issue with the IP address pool configuration in Plesk. For example, there may not be any available IP addresses or the first IP address may be set as dedicated instead of shared.

1023 - Unable to accept the template: the following limitations are exceeded

This issue occurs when the resources provided by the serivce plan addon were already used by the subscription.