Install Plesk on Ubuntu 18.04 with Google Cloud Platform

Plesk is the leading hosting automation platform to run, automate and grow applications, websites and hosting businesses with a single control panel which has an intuitive graphical interface, a ready-to-code environment and powerful extensions.

In this tutorial, you are going to learn how to install Plesk on Google Cloud with Ubuntu 18.04.

Create the VM Instance

Note: Plesk runs smoothly on a g1-small instance for less than 10 websites or applications with a small load. It’s recommended to use a n1-standard-1 instance with SSD or higher for larger workloads.

Plesk can be installed on Linux distributions and also on Windows.

Go to Compute Engine >> VM Instances and click Create Instance

In Name provide a name for your Instance

In Region choose the region closest to your visitors

In Machine Type choose 3.75 GB memory 1vCPU.

In Boot disk click Change and choose Ubuntu 18.04 LTS. In Size enter your required size, minimum should be 20 GB and click Select

In Firewall check both Allow HTTP traffic and Allow HTTPS traffic

Click Create

It will take a while before the VM instance will be available for you.

Reserve your IP address

If your IP address has a valid license you can proceed to reserve your IP address by going to VPC Networks >> External IP Addresses reserve your IP address to Static.

Setup Cloud DNS

Please follow this guide to setup Cloud DNS and point your domain to Google Cloud.

Setup Firewall rules

Plesk uses a custom port to manage the server, so you need to create a firewall to provide access to this port.

Go to VPC Network >> Firewall rules and click Create Firewall rules.

In Name enter plesk

In Targets select All instances in the network

In Source filter select IP ranges

In Source IP ranges enter 0.0.0.0/0

In Protocols and ports check TCP and enter 53,465,587,8443,8447, also check UDP and enter 53

Click Create.

Connect your VM Instance

Go to Compute Engine >> VM Instances and click the SSH button right next to your instance to open the terminal window in the browser.

Set up Hostname in Google Cloud

Google Compute Engine won’t preserve the hostname (yourdomainname.com) you set and changes it to default hostname automatically. To preserve the hostname follow the below simple steps.

cd /etc/dhcp/dhclient-exit-hooks.d/
sudo nano set-hostname.sh

Paste the following contents and hit Ctrl+X followed by Y to save the filter. Remember to replace yourdomainname.com with your domain name

#!/bin/sh
hostname yourdomainname.com
/scripts/fixetchosts

Set correct permissions to the file you created

chmod 744 set-hostname.sh

Now you are ready to install Plesk on Google Cloud.

Install Plesk on Google Cloud

Plesk can be installed using different methods.

1. Install with One-Click using SSH
2. Run Plesk with Docker
3. Install Plesk via a browser
4. Install Plesk with CLI

In this guide we all using the easiest installation method with One Click.

Start by updating the packages upto date.

sudo su
apt update
apt upgrade

Set up root password.

passwd

Enter the password and confirm the password. Save the password in a secure place with this password you need to login to Plesk Control Panel.

Execute the following command to install Plesk.

sh <(curl https://autoinstall.plesk.com/one-click-installer || wget -O - https://autoinstall.plesk.com/one-click-installer)

The installation will start automatically, and takes around 30 – 40 minutes to complete.

Dont worry, if you are missing some components you can add them later.

Once installation is completed, you will be greeted with the congratulations message and the URL to login to Plesk Dashboard.

Plesk Post Installation Set Up

Go to your browser and use this URL format to log in (https://INSTANCE_IP_ADDRESS:8443).

Use Username as root and password as the one you have set before.

You will see the welcome page to enter your basic contact details.

Enter your email and setup a new password for the user named admin. Next time you can login using the username admin.

Click Enter Plesk.

Once the setup is completed you will see your dashboard.

Now go to Tools & Settings >> General Settings >> Server Settings and update the host name as your domain name.

Install FREE SSL Certificate

Go to Tools & Settings >> Security >>SSL/TLS Certificates and click Let’sEncrypt and select your domain name to install the SSL certificate.

The go to Tools & Settings >> Server management and click Restart server.

Now you can use your domain name to login to Plesk.

Conclusion

Now you have learned how to install Plesk on Ubuntu 18.04 in Google Cloud.

Thanks for your time. If you face any problem or any feedback, please leave a comment below.