Plesk for Linux uses the Apache web server for websites hosting. In
Plesk, Apache by default is supplemented with nginx to achieve better
performance.
Apache itself does not operate with websites; it manages virtual hosts -
web resources identified either by an IP address or a host name. When
creating a site, Plesk adds a new virtual host to Apache so that the
site becomes available through the web server. Plesk resides on a
virtual host too; this host is called the default virtual host.
When you add a site in Plesk, you select one of the hosting types to use
with it: web page hosting or forwarding. In terms of Apache, you
associate the site with a virtual host of one of three configurations
(website hosting, standard forwarding, and frame forwarding). To learn
the differences between these configurations, see the section Virtual
Hosts and Hosting Types.
Sites are linked to virtual hosts, so if you want to add some feature
provided by Apache but not available through the Plesk GUI, you should
change the virtual host settings using Apache configuration templates.
Based on these templates, Plesk partly re-generates virtual hosts, so
you should follow certain rules when modifying the configuration;
otherwise, some of your changes might be lost. Next in this chapter, we
will discuss virtual hosts in more detail and provide guidelines on how
to modify them safely. To learn more on this point, refer to the section
Changing Virtual Hosts Settings Using Configuration
Templates.
Plesk creates virtual hosts for websites based on virtual host
templates. These templates predefine the content that will be included
in each new virtual host. Learn how to change virtual host templates in
Administrator’s Guide, section Presetting Content of Customer
Websites.
You can get information on access to each virtual host and Apache errors
that have occurred on the host from Apache logs. Learn more about log
files location and rotation settings in the section Analyzing Access
and Errors.
Virtual Host IP Addresses
The term virtual host refers to the practice of running more than one
website on a single server or IP address. For example, Apache can manage
two websites, example1.com and example2.com, even if they use a
single IP address. Each of these sites is hosted on…