Adrian's Blog

Tag: Plesk

  • Error 500 applying upgrades in Magento Downloader

    Inspecting the error log, the 500 error embedded in the downloader console is the result of a php timeout:

    mod_fcgid: read data timeout in 45 seconds, referer: https://www.<omitted>
(110)Connection timed out: mod_fcgid: ap_pass_brigade failed in  handle_request_ipc function, referer: https://www.

    According to Plesk Article ID: 127621, FcgidIOTimeout should be the same as PHP’s max_execution_time unless the latter is set to 0.

    From Plesk 12.5 control panel for a domain use Apache & nginx Settings to add the following directive to both http and https, which increases the FcgidIOTimeout from 45 to 120 seconds :

    <IfModule mod_fcgid.c>
    FcgidIOTimeout 120
</IfModule>

    Simply OK this and re-run the Magento Downloader again.

    Note: at the time of writing the Magneto Connect site is very slow, which may be the cause of this timeout.

  • Can’t receive Gmail messages on Plesk domains

    Google’s response to the Poodle email vulnerability seems to be to send using TLS where the server is properly configured, but queue messages where it isn’t. So to enable email receipt we need to tell qmail SMTP which encryption to use, and provide it with a valid certificate.

    Plesk supports SSL certificates, obviously, but also has a self-certified certificate for use with the control panel. This can be used for SMTP.

    Either for qmail:
    cp /usr/local/psa/admin/conf/httpsd.pem /var/qmail/control/servercert.pem
    or Postfix:
    cp /usr/local/psa/admin/conf/httpsd.pem /etc/postfix/postfix_default.pem

    IMAP:
    cp /usr/local/psa/admin/conf/httpsd.pem /usr/share/imapd.pem
    POP3:
    cp /usr/local/psa/admin/conf/httpsd.pem /usr/share/pop3d.pem

    And to make sure the certificate is used, create the TLS cipher rule files:
    openssl ciphers > /var/qmail/control/tlsserverciphers
    openssl ciphers > /var/qmail/control/tlsclientciphers

    (servercert.pem tlsserverciphers and tlsclientciphers were all empty in my installation)

    It may also be worth checking the integrity of the qmail installation:
    /usr/local/psa/admin/sbin/mchk

  • Finding big files in Unix

    Assuming Perl is running on the server, this is quite neat:
    find / -mount -noleaf -type f -size +10000k -print0 | xargs -0 ls -lhSr | perl -ne '/(\S+\s+){4}(\S+)\s+(\S+\s+){3}(.*)/ and printf("%*s %s\n",7,$2.":",$4);'

  • Adding mcrypt to Plesk 12

    The php mcrypt module, required by Magento, wasn’t present on our Plesk VPS. Here’s how to add it from SSH:

    (1) Add the repository. For example, to add EPEL:
    rpm -Uvh http://dl.fedoraproject.org/pub/epel/6/x86_64/epel-release-6-8.noarch.rpm

    (2) Install the php-mcrypt module:
    yum install php-mcrypt

  • Increasing the Plesk maximum message size

    Large attachments may prevent a Plesk mail server from receiving email; the default is 2-MB which is a little small for Office users exchanging documents.
    To change this:
    Login to Plesk
    Under Server Management, Click “Tools & Settings”
    Under Mail, Click “Mail Server Settings”
    Change the “Maximum message size” to a larger value, e.g. 25600 kilobytes.
    Click “OK”

  • Outlook Error 0x800CCC0E – Unable to connect to the server

    Error 0x800CCC0E on clients connecting to a Plesk VPS manifests itself with several descriptions:

    Task ‘Checking for new mail in subscribed folders on your_account.com.’ reported error (0x800CCC0E)
    Outlook is unable to download folder (null) from IMAP e-mail server for account your_account.com.
    Error: Unable to connect to the server. If you continue to receive this message, contact your server administrator or Internet service provider (ISP).

    Assuming that there isn’t a problem connecting to the server (in my case mail was being sent and received, but IMAP folders would not synchronise) then the problem lies with Plesk limiting the number of mail client connections from a single IP address – four by default. To raise this limit:

    Login to Plesk
    Under Server Management, Click “Tools & Settings”
    Under Mail, Click “Mail Server Settings”
    Change the “Maximum number of connections per IP address” to a larger value, e.g. 40.
    Click “OK”

  • Plesk SMTP authentication error

    After several hours banging my head against the wall over an Outlook error “0x800CCC80; None of the authentication methods supported by this client are supported by your server” I finally found the cause of the problem; I had installed the postfix mail server on the new Plesk VPS host rather than qmail.
    Postfix requires TLS encryption on port 587, qmail does not – and the Outlook default is “None”. Changing the encryption required in Outlook is disruptive – lots of clients – and also gives rise to a certificate warning, so I decided to take the cowards way out and replace postfix with qmail.
    More here.