First Steps After Upgrading to Onyx

This chapter is intended for hosting service customers who previously used Plesk version 9 and earlier. It describes the most important changes in Plesk and addresses possible issues that the users might encounter after their accounts and sites are moved to Plesk Onyx during the Plesk upgrade.

The most important concepts you should know

  • Domain is replaced by subscription.

    The concept of a domain has been replaced with a concept of a subscription - a hosting unit able to run multiple sites (domains and subdomains) over given resources and services. Multi-domain hosting within one subscription is limited to one IP address. Customers who need to host sites on different IP addresses are advised to obtain additional subscriptions.

  • Resources of a client are now resources of a subscription.

    Customers no longer need to redistribute their resources across domains or subscription: Each subscription is allocated a fixed set of resources according to a hosting plan.

  • SSL/TLS certificates are typically shared among all domains of a subscription.

    All sites in a subscription typically share the same SSL/TLS certificate. It is also possible to have per-domain certificates in case Plesk supports SNI.

    To protect all subdomains in a subscription with one certificate, customers should consider purchasing a multi-domain (a wildcard) SSL/TLS certificate.

Peculiarities of SiteBuilder upgrade

  • Plesk Onyx ships with Presence Builder (former SiteBuilder), but you can use SiteBuilder 4.5 as well.

    Presence Builder is a Plesk component that allows fast and efficient creation of websites. When Plesk with SiteBuilder is upgraded to Plesk Onyx, the SiteBuilder component is not actually upgraded. Instead, the new Presence Builder is installed on the server, and SiteBuilder 4.5 remains operable; however, operations on websites created in SiteBuilder 4.5 are limited to editing and publishing.

  • Transfer of websites from SiteBuilder 4.5 to Presence Builder is supported, with limitations.

    Presence Builder allows websites created in SiteBuilder 4.5 to be imported. However, this feature has certain limitations: some elements may be missing or corrupted in the imported website. We advise you to compare it with the original version and add the missing content manually.

    See the section Importing Sites from SiteBuilder 4.5 for more details on importing SiteBuilder 4.5 sites to Presence Builder.

Changes in storing secure content

  • httpdocs is the only allowed directory for storing web content accessed over secure SSL/TLS.

    The option to use a separate directory for storing web content that should be accessed over secure SSL/TLS connections is no longer available. All web content is now stored in a single directory - httpdocs.

    The httpsdocs directory may remain on the subscription after upgrading to Plesk Onyx, however, we recommend that you place all content in the httpdocs directory when uploading files to the subscription over FTP.

    If you used the option to keep SSL-protected and all other content in separate directories, and had APS-packaged applications installed in the httpsdocs directory of a website, then after upgrade, Plesk will switch on the compatibility mode for that site. This will make the apps previously installed into httpsdocs directory accessible to the Internet users, but the apps will not be manageable through Plesk, and you will not be able to install new apps to the httpsdocs directory.

    In such a case, if you have the necessary technical skills, you can do the following:

    1. Back up all content from the httpsdocs directory and save it to another location. Do not move the files to httpdocs yet.
    2. Back up databases used by applications installed in httpsdocs directory. You can do this with the help of the mysqldump utility.
    3. Remove applications from the httpsdocs directory.
    4. Switch off the compatibility mode through Plesk (at Websites & Domains tab > domain name).
    5. Reinstall the required applications.
    6. Upload the data you backed up on the step 1 to the httpdocs directory.
    7. Restore the applications’ databases by importing them to the MySQL database server.

    If you are an inexperienced user, we recommend that you leave the previously installed applications and uploaded content in the httpsdocs directory, and host new applications on other websites. If you need to install apps on the site operating in compatibility mode, you can install them to the httpdocs (http://) location on that site.