How to Install Plesk (Linux and Windows)

This guide explains how to install Plesk Obsidian on a freshly installed Linux or Windows server. Plesk is a control panel that lets you manage your websites, email, databases and SSL certificates from one screen.

Before you start

• License: Plesk is installed without a license; the license is added after installation. A Plesk license bought from Verinomi is bound to your server's main IPv4 address, and Plesk picks it up by itself once installed.
• One panel: only one control panel runs on a server; Plesk is not installed on a server running cPanel.

Supported operating systems

At Verinomi you can select a Plesk license for VDS servers running these systems:

• Linux: AlmaLinux 8, 9 and 10; Debian 12 and 13; Ubuntu 22.04 and 24.04
• Windows: Windows Server 2016, 2019, 2022 and 2025

Hardware requirements

Plesk recommends 1 GB of swap on servers with 1 GB of RAM or less, and half the amount of RAM on servers with more. More memory is needed as the number of hosted websites grows.

Installing on a Linux server

1. If you use Debian, disable AppArmor

Plesk requires AppArmor to be disabled before it is installed on Debian. The method in Debian's own documentation is:

mkdir -p /etc/default/grub.d
echo 'GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="$GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT apparmor=0"' | tee /etc/default/grub.d/apparmor.cfg
update-grub
reboot

This step is not needed on AlmaLinux and Ubuntu.

2. Install Plesk

Connect to the server over SSH as root and run:

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

The command installs the latest stable release of Plesk with the recommended components. The installation takes about 15 minutes on average; do not close your SSH session in the meantime. If firewalld is present on the server, Plesk opens the required ports by itself during installation.

Installing on a Windows server

1. Connect to your server with Remote Desktop (RDP) as Administrator.
2. Before installing, make sure the server has a static IP address. Plesk installs only on NTFS-formatted disks.
3. Download the Plesk installer: https://installer-win.plesk.com/plesk-installer.exe
4. Open the command prompt (cmd) as administrator, change to the folder where you downloaded the installer and run:

plesk-installer.exe --select-product-id=panel --select-release-latest --installation-type=recommended

The installation takes between 30 minutes and an hour on average.

First login

Open your server's IP address with port 8443 in your browser:

https://203.0.113.10:8443

On the first login, use root on Linux or Administrator on Windows as the username, with that user's server password. Your browser may show a security warning on the first login; if you are sure you are connecting to your own server's address, you can continue.

On a Linux server, if you would rather log in without typing a password, run this over SSH:

plesk login

The command creates one-time login links, one with the hostname and one with the IP address. A link can be used once and expires after 24 hours.

On the first login Plesk asks you to set the administrator email address and password. From then on, you log in with the username admin and the password you set here.

On the license screen, if your license was bought from Verinomi you do not need to choose the trial license. If Plesk cannot find the license, you can open a support ticket from your client area. If you want to try Plesk before buying a license, you can use the full-featured trial license for 14 days with up to 3 domains.

Port used

The Plesk administration interface uses port 8443 (HTTPS). If your server has a firewall, make sure this port is open.

Troubleshooting

• The installation fails on Debian: check that AppArmor is disabled and that you rebooted the server after the step above.
• I forgot the administrator password: on Linux, get a login link with plesk login and change the password in the panel.
• The license does not show up: the license must be bound to your server's main IPv4 address; open a support ticket and we will check it.

Let us install it for you

If you buy your Plesk license from Verinomi, our team installs it for you. Just open a support ticket from your client area after ordering the license.

The information in this guide is taken from the vendor's official documentation: Plesk Documentation.