Why Plesk Onyx 17.8 does not allow changing the hostname during initial configuration

Question

Why Plesk Onyx 17.8 does not allow changing the hostname during initial configuration?

Answer

This behavior is by-design. Initial configuration has been changed in Plesk Onyx 17.8.

To change the hostname, do the following:

• Once a new Plesk Onyx 17.8 server is set up and configured, in Plesk go to Tools & Settings > Server Settings and specify a valid hostname.

  
  
  
  

• Alternatively, run the command below in a command-line interface specifying a valid hostname. The command is valid for both Linux and Windows servers:

  # plesk bin server_pref --update -hostname server.example.com

Additional Information

In Plesk Onyx 17.5, there are 4 steps of the initial configuration of a new server:

1. Choose the interface view.
2. Set up hostname, select a shared IP, set up password.
3. Provide admin's personal information.
4. Upload a license.

In Plesk Onyx 17.8, the initial configuration steps number is shortened down to 2 steps (screens):

1. Set admin's name, e-mail, password; activate license, accept EULA.
2. Wait for Plesk to configure the server.

Here is how Plesk Onyx 17.8 configures every new server:

• Set interface view to Power User view. Service Provider view is automatically selected if a valid Web Host license activation key was specified on the initial configuration screen.

• Select a default and shared IP address of the server. The following logic is used when choosing a shared IP address:

  1. Take all IPv4 and IPv6 IP addresses on every network interface, except loopback and Docker interfaces.
  2. Filter out IP addresses from reserved subnets (i.e. private network addresses).
  3. Select the first available IPv4 address from the list. If not found, select the first available IPv6 address from the list.
  4. If not found, use the first available IPv4 address from private networks, filtered on step 2. If no such IPv4 address is available, try to find suitable IPv6 addresses.
  5. If no suitable IP addresses found, produce an error: "No IP addresses found".

• Set Plesk hostname to be the same as the server's hostname.

• Automatically secure the control panel with a Let's Encrypt! certificate. If issuing Let's Encrypt! certificate is not possible (e.g. the server's hostname is not properly resolved to one of the server's IP addresses), the interface will not show any errors, but Plesk interface will be protected with a self-signed SSL certificate created during Plesk installation.

• If no valid license was provided on initial configuration screen, request a 15-day trial Web Pro license from Plesk Key Administrator server, using name and e-mail of Plesk administrator and install it.

Related Articles

• How to change or get a server hostname on Plesk server