The navigation pane is located on the left. It gives you access to sets of administrative functions:

* Home. This is where you modify settings related to your account, manage Web sites and e-mail services.

* Sessions. When site and mailbox owners log in to control panel, or connect to the server via FTP protocol, they establish sessions that you can monitor and terminate.

* Help Desk. This is the help desk system integrated with your control panel. If your provider uses it, then you can use it to report your problems to provider's technical support staff.

* Help. Provides context sensitive help.

* Log Out. When finished working with control panel, click this icon to close your session.

Below the Help icon, there is a context help tip area. It provides a brief description of the current screen or available operations. When you place the mouse pointer over a system element or status icon, it displays additional information.

To navigate through Plesk, you can also use a path bar: a chain of links that appears in the right part of the screen, below the banner area. To return to a previous screen, use the Up Level icon in the upper-right corner of the screen.

To find items in lengthy lists, use search boxes located above every list of items: type a search criterion into the input box, and click Search. A list will show the items matching the search criteria. To return back to viewing all items, click Show All.

To sort a list by a certain parameter in ascending or descending order, click on the parameter's title in the column heading. The order of sorting will be indicated by a small triangle displayed next to the parameter's title.

The main work area is located on the right. It provides shortcuts for access to the major functions available for your account. The set of controls you can use depends on your provider's policy. Below you will find the entire list of controls that could ever appear on your Home page.

Edit. Edit your personal information and change the password for control panel access.

Report. View your account status report.

Preferences. Set the interface skin, language and other interface-specific options.

Permissions. View the permissions to manage certain features within your account.

Limits. View the resource allotments defined for your account.

IP Pool. View available IP addresses in your IP pool and their properties.

Skeleton. Predefine content for new web sites with virtual host skeleton.

Logo Setup. Customize the logo displayed at the top of the Plesk interface.

Custom Buttons. Set up and manage multiple additional buttons that will be displayed in the control panel.

Backup. Backup and restore your account and web sites.

Add New Domain. Allows you to create and host new web sites.

Domain Templates. Implement your hosting plans using domain templates.

Register. Register your domain name through MyPlesk.Com online store.

Manage. Manage the domain names you have registered with MyPlesk.Com.

Extras. Purchase SSL certificates and Web applications from MyPlesk.Com online store.

Traffic. View bandwidth usage statistics for hosted domains.

Custom Buttons group displays the button you placed to your Home page. For more information on custom buttons, refer to the Customizing Your Control Panel section.

Info group displays a short resource usage report for your account. This includes the information on the total amount of domains, amount of active domains, and disk space and bandwidth used. For more information about resources and limits, refer to chapter Viewing Resource Allotments and Hosting Features Included in Your Hosting Package.

Domains group displays the list of all domains/web sites you are currently hosting. You can see the basic domain statistics there.

* To manage a domain/web site, click its name.

* To see a detailed report on a domain/web site, click the icon corresponding to the domain name, located in the P column.

* To configure hosting for a site, click the icon corresponding to the domain name, located in the H column.

* To make similar changes to several domains/web sites at once, select the check boxes corresponding to the domain names and click Group Operations. Refer to the Performing Group Operations on Domains section for more information.

The desktop view originally shows three sections:

* Tools. This group shows shortcuts to the operations that you can perform through the control panel. You can freely add and remove these shortcuts.

* Statistics. This shows the number of domains you have under your account, disk space and monthly bandwidth usage, and number of mailboxes on your hosted domains.

* Favorites. This group shows four types of shortcuts sorted by type and placed on the respective tabs. The Domains tab shows shortcuts to your favorite domains. The Mailnames tab shows shortcuts to the favorite e-mail accounts. The Shortcuts tab shows all other types of shortcuts that do not relate to domains and e-mail user accounts. The Recent tab shows last ten control panel screens you have been on. The Favorites group also provides search tool for finding domains and e-mail accounts. To use the search tool, type the search criteria (this can be any combination of symbols, search is case insensitive) and click Search.

To view the IP addresses included in your hosting package, on your Home page, click the IP Pool icon. Your IP addresses are listed and the following supplementary information is given:

• An icon in the S (Status) column shows if your IP address is properly configured on the network interface. If your IP address was removed from the network interface by your provider, an icon will show
• An icon in the T (Type) column shows if you were allotted a dedicated IP address, and if the address is shared among other customers of your service provider. A dedicated IP address is not used by other users, so you can use it to host either:
• A single e-commerce Web site secured with Secure Sockets Layer encryption,
• A number of web sites that do not need Secure Sockets Layer encryption.

The Certificate column shows which SSL certificate (for what domain name) is tied to an IP address. See the section "Securing e-commerce transactions with Secure Sockets Layer encryption" for details.

The Hosting column shows a number of web sites hosted on an IP address. To view the domain names of these web sites, click the number in the Hosting column.

To view the resource allotments for your account, on your Home page, click the Limits icon. The resource allotments are shown as follows:

* Maximum number of domains. The total number of domain names/web sites you can host on the server. This includes web sites that you host on this server, and domain forwarders that point to web sites hosted on other servers. Domain aliases (additional domain names for a site hosted on this server) are not limited by this resource type.

* Maximum number of subdomains. The total number of subdomains that can be hosted for your sites.

* Disk space. The total amount of disk space in megabytes that can be occupied by your web sites and sites of your customers. It includes disk space occupied by all files related to all domains/web sites: web site contents, databases, applications, mailboxes, log files and backup files. This is the so-called soft quota: when it is exceeded, domain names and web sites are not suspended automatically, only the appropriate notices are sent to your and your provider's e-mail addresses and the resource overage is indicated by the icon shown in the control panel to the left of your name (see the top of the right frame on your Home page).

* Maximum amount of traffic. The amount of data in megabytes that can be transferred from your web sites during a month. Once the limit is reached, the appropriate notices are sent to your and your provider's e-mail addresses and the resource overage is indicated by the icon shown in the control panel to the left of your name (see the top of the right frame on your Home page).

* Maximum number of web users. The total number of personal web pages that you or your customers can host for other users. This service is mostly used in educational institutions that host non-commercial personal pages of their students and staff. These pages usually have web addresses like http://your-domain.com/~username. Refer to the Hosting Personal Web Pages on Your Web Server section for details.

* Maximum number of databases. The total number of databases that can be hosted on the server.

* Maximum number of mailboxes. The total number of mailboxes that can be hosted on the server.

* Mailbox quota. The limit on amount of disk space in kilobytes that can be allocated to each mailbox.

* Maximum number of mail forwarders. The total number of mail forwarders that can be set up on the server.

* Maximum number of mail autoresponders. The total number of automatic responses that can be set up on the server.

* Maximum number of mailing lists. The total number of mailing lists that can be hosted on the server. The mailing lists are served by the GNU Mailman software, which may or may not be installed on the server. If it is not installed and you or your customers would like to use it, ask your provider to install it.

* Maximum number of Java applications. The total number of Java applications or applets that can be hosted on the server.

* Validity period. The term of your hosting or reseller account. At the end of the term, your domains/web sites will be suspended, their Web, FTP and mail services will no longer be accessible to the Internet users, and domain owners will not be able to log in to their control panels.

To view the list of operations you can perform within your control panel, on your Home page, click the Permissions icon. The permissions for operations are listed as follows:

* Domain creation.Shows whether you can host new domain names/web sites on the server.

* Physical hosting management.Shows whether you can fully control hosting accounts for your web sites. If it says No, then you can only change FTP password for accessing your web spaces.

* Management of shell access to the server. Shows whether you can access the server shell and allow other users to do so.

* Hard disk quota assignment. Shows whether you can set up the hard quotas on disk space allocated to your sites.

* Subdomains management. Shows whether you can set up, modify and remove subdomains.

* Domain aliases management. Shows whether you can set up additional alternative domain names for your web sites.

* Log rotation management. Shows whether you can adjust the cleanup and recycling of processed log files for your site.

* Anonymous FTP management. Shows whether you can have an FTP directory where all users could download and upload files without the need to enter login and password. A web site should reside on a dedicated IP address in order to use anonymous FTP service.

* Crontab management. Shows whether you can schedule tasks with the Crontab task scheduler. Scheduled tasks can be used for running scripts or utilities on schedule.

* DNS zone management. Shows whether you can manage the DNS zones of your domains.

* Java applications management. Shows whether you can install Java applications and applets on the web site through the control panel.

* Mailing lists management. Shows whether you can use mailing lists provided by the GNU Mailman software.

* Dr.Web antivirus management. Shows whether you can use server-side antivirus protection for filtering incoming and outgoing mail. The Dr.Web antivirus solution can filter 15 mailboxes for free. The customers who need antivirus protection for a larger number of mailboxes, can purchase a license at www.drweb.com.

* Backup and restore functions. Shows whether you can use the control panel's facilities to backup and restore your sites. Scheduled and on-demand backups are supported.

* User interface. Shows what type of Plesk control panel interface you can use - standard, desktop, or both.

* Desktop management. Shows whether you can customize and manage your desktop interface.

* Ability to use remote XML interface. Shows whether you can remotely manage web sites through custom applications. You may want to use the XML interface for developing custom applications integrated with your web site, which you could use, for instance, for automating setup of hosting accounts and provisioning of services for customers purchasing hosting services from your site. The remote XML interface operations are limited to setting up and removing domain names/web spaces on the server, modifying domain and web site related preferences and hosting services, retrieving information on domains. To learn more about using Plesk control panel's XML interface (also referred to as Plesk API RPC), please visit http://download1.swsoft.com/Plesk/Plesk7.5/Doc/plesk-7.5r-sdk-html/docs/plesk_agent/ch01.html.