Knowledge Base

Unable to remove an IP address via Plesk: IP address 203.0.113.2 cannot be removed because it is used by DNS zone of one or more domains

Symptoms

An IP address (in this example, 203.0.113.2) is set as public for a private IP address and added as a separate IP address at Tools & Settings > IP Addresses.
When removing the separate IP address, the operation fails with:

Error: IP address 203.0.113.2 cannot be removed because it is used by DNS zone of one or more domains

Cause

The IP address is used as public for the private IP address which has a website hosted on it.

Resolution

Apply one of the following solutions:

Note: Make sure that the IP address you are going to remove is not used by any domain at Tools & Settings > IP Addresses > press on the number in the Sites column.

Removing the IP address via Plesk

In Plesk, go to Tools & Settings > IP Addresses > <private_ip_address>.
Remove the public IP address from the Public IP address field.
Click OK. Wait for the process to complete.
Once the process is completed, remove the public IP address from IP Addresses.
Click <private_ip_address> and specify the public IP address back. Click OK.

Removing the IP address manually via a command-line interface

Connect to the Plesk server via SSH.
Identify the interface on which the IP address is located:

# ip a
2: venet0: <BROADCAST,POINTOPOINT,NOARP,UP,LOWER_UP> mtu 1500 qdisc noqueue state UNKNOWN
link/void
inet 192.0.2.2/32 brd 10.39.81.154 scope global eth0
inet 203.0.113.2/8 scope global eth0:1
Remove the IP address from the interface:

# ip addr del 203.0.113.2/8 dev eth0
Remove the old IP address:

# plesk db "delete from IP_Addresses where ip_address='203.0.113.2'"