Customizing the User Interface

Since Plesk 7.5.3, in addition to the limits you impose on resource usage, you can restrict user access to specific interface elements of the Plesk control panel. This way you can disallow the control panel users to use the features you don’t want them to use. The users will not even know about them, because you will hide them.

You can choose to hide a set of buttons (such as those related to accessing My.Plesk.com services or all buttons that are grayed out because service is unavailable/not installed), or individual controls on specific screens.

Note
You should not rely on the control hiding capabilities for security, and disable sensitive features by other means existing in Plesk instead of or in addition to hiding controls.

Hiding and Unhiding Individual Interface Elements

  1. Click the Server shortcut in the navigation pane, and then click the Interface Management icon in the Control panel group.

  2. Select the Show interface management toolbar check box and click OK. The toolbar will appear in the bottom right frame.
  3. Navigate through the control panel to the screen that shows the interface elements you want to hide/unhide.
  4. Click the Customize button on the toolbar to enable the customization mode.
  5. Click on the interface element that you want to hide or show. A drop-down menu will open.
  6. At this step,
  7. Click the OK button on the toolbar to submit the settings. The toolbar will be closed and you will exit the customization mode.

Hiding and Unhiding Grayed out Buttons

For each service that is not installed in the server’s operating system and therefore is not manageable through the control panel, Plesk shows a grayed out icon and the appropriate message in the context help tips area of the navigation pane.

If you do not want Plesk to show any grayed out controls,

  1. Click the Server shortcut in the navigation pane, and then click the Interface Management icon in the Control panel group.
  2. Select the Hide all grayed out controls by default check box and click OK.

To make Plesk show the grayed out controls,

  1. Click the Server shortcut in the navigation pane, and then click the Interface Management icon in the Control panel group.
  2. Clear the Hide all grayed out controls by default check box and click OK.

Hiding and Unhiding Sets of Buttons

If you do not want your customers to access the domain registration and other services provided by My.Plesk.com, you can hide all MPC related control panel elements in a few clicks.

To hide or unhide the controls,

  1. Click the Server shortcut in the navigation pane, and then click the Interface Management icon in the Control panel group.
  2. In the Button sets group, select/deselect the check boxes corresponding to the services you wish to disallow (or allow).
  3. Click OK to submit the changes.

Hiding and Unhiding from Users the Limits and Permissions Management Controls They Are Not Allowed to Operate

To hide or unhide from the control panel users all permission management controls that they cannot operate,

  1. Click the Server shortcut in the navigation pane, and then click the Interface Management icon in the Control panel group.
  2. Select/deselect the check box labeled 'Hide from users the permission management controls they are not allowed to operate'.
  3. Click OK.

To hide or unhide from the control panel users all resource limit management controls that they cannot operate,

  1. Click the Server shortcut in the navigation pane, and then click the Interface Management icon in the Control panel group.
  2. Select/deselect the check box labeled “Hide from users the limit management controls they are not allowed to operate”.
  3. Click OK.

Super Administrative Overrides

The super administrator (root) can define a set of controls that are never shown in Plesk control panel, even to a user with administrative privileges (and even in the Customization mode). To do this,

  1. Customize the interface through the Plesk control panel.
  2. Create an empty file with name root.controls.lock and place it in the directory /usr/local/psa/var/.
  3. Login to the MySQL database server and retrieve the values describing the state of the hidden controls.
    # mysql -uadmin -Dpsa –p
    mysql> select page, control from ControlVisibility;
    
    +-------------------------+-------------+
    | /server/server.php3     |  key_info   |
    +-------------------------+-------------+
    
  4. Add these values to the /usr/local/psa/var/root.controls.lock file separating them with colons:
    /server/server.php3:key_info
    
  5. Save the file.

The values you put into this file will override the customizations made through the control panel.

Exporting Your Customization to Other Plesk Servers

To export your customization settings,

  1. Click the Server shortcut in the navigation pane, and then click the Interface Management icon in the Control panel group.
  2. Click the Export button. A shell script will be generated and you will be prompted to specify the location where the downloaded file should be saved.
  3. Once downloading is completed, upload this file to the Plesk server to which you wish to import the customization settings.
  4. Run this script as root on the Plesk server. This will import the data into Plesk database, completely overwriting any interface customization settings previously made.
Note
The super-administrative overrides are not exported, but the “Hide all grayed out controls by default” setting and button set states are.