Plesk is one of the multi-sided solutions for server ad­min­is­tra­tion. Hosting service providers, IT spe­cial­ists, de­vel­op­ers, or content managers all profit from the man­age­ment of web, DNS, mail, and other server services – as well as from the clear user interface of the control panel. Plesk enables control of in­di­vid­ual services via a single interface, and so enor­mous­ly reduces the ad­min­is­tra­tional effort required. For example, if you create a WordPress project with the man­age­ment tool, all queries are au­to­mat­i­cal­ly forwarded to the desired server – which in turn au­to­mat­i­cal­ly adds a virtual host.

Plesk also has an available file sharing function that makes it possible to implement the ad­van­tages of online storage on your own server. Find out in this guide what exactly is hiding behind this feature and which steps are required to be able to operate Plesk file sharing.

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What is Plesk?

Plesk Onyx (pre­vi­ous­ly Parellels Plesk) is a cross-platform man­age­ment software for running, au­tomat­ing, and de­vel­op­ing ap­pli­ca­tions, websites, or hosting struc­tures. Since the early 2000s, the program has sim­pli­fied daily tasks for system ad­min­is­tra­tors, small and medium-sized busi­ness­es, and in­fra­struc­ture providers. It doesn’t matter whether you want to control entire server functions, set up new user profiles, or create domains – Plesk provides the perfect basis. Using an interface accessed by the internet browser of your choice, any number of web services can be operated, con­trolled, and made available to user groups.

The Plesk de­vel­op­ers place par­tic­u­lar emphasis on security: In addition to the in­te­grat­ed SSL/TLS en­cryp­tion, features such as the Ker­nel­Care tool (pro­tec­tion and updates for the system core), the Datagrid VCTR scanner (vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty check and software update), or the Google Au­then­ti­ca­tor (login pro­tec­tion via 2-factor au­then­ti­ca­tion) ensure the pro­tec­tion of all managed services. It’s no co­in­ci­dence that the man­age­ment software runs on more than 377,000 servers worldwide, hosting more than 11 million websites and 19 million e-mail inboxes. Around half of the top 100 service providers rely on the merits of the Onyx product, which is available in more than 30 languages and 140 countries.

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How Plesk supports ad­min­is­tra­tors and users

Re­gard­less of whether a hosting provider supplies web in­fra­struc­ture on a large scale or whether an SME ad­min­is­tra­tor is re­spon­si­ble for the func­tion­al­i­ty of in-house services: Both building the struc­tures and managing them take con­sid­er­able effort. Plesk acts as a sup­port­ing con­nec­tion between the re­spon­si­ble organizer of the in­fra­struc­ture and the users. The man­age­ment software automates various processes and helps ad­min­is­tra­tors keep all programs up to date and regulate the dis­tri­b­u­tion and uti­liza­tion of hardware resources. Detailed profiles can be also created through user man­age­ment which grant users different per­mis­sions. Users of the services profit in various ways, primarily by the simple access to necessary com­po­nents. Through the web interface, the desired ap­pli­ca­tions can be con­fig­ured and managed – for example, you can install popular CMS such as WordPress, Drupal, or Joomla! with just one click. De­vel­op­ers find in­ter­faces for services like Docker or Git and can back up their projects at any time on a local directory or via GitHub, Bitbucket, or Travis and Co.

Note

Plesk makes it possible to organize the access to managed in­fra­struc­ture with the help of service packages and sub­scrip­tions. A service package is char­ac­ter­ized by a definable com­bi­na­tion of available hardware resources and services. The user then sub­scribes to the re­spec­tive package and receives access to the specified com­po­nents – such as, for example, storage space, traffic, or par­tic­u­lar ap­pli­ca­tions.

How does Plesk file sharing work?

The file sharing function of Plex Onyx makes it possible to save data on your own server and retrieve it the same way you would from cloud services like Dropbox, OneDrive, or Google Drive. In addition, the uploaded files can be made available to selected user groups so that they can also access them. But the upload is only possible for ad­min­is­tra­tors and ad­di­tion­al users created under sub­scrip­tions belonging to the ad­min­is­tra­tor. Third parties, such as customers, can only download files via provided download links. The ad­van­tages of Plesk filing sharing are obvious:

  • Transfer files that are too big for e-mail
  • Avail­abil­i­ty of files to a public audience or coworkers
  • Access to files possible via various devices
  • Full control of your own files without requiring an external cloud service

Publicly-shared files are always shared with all users who have access to file sharing through their sub­scrip­tions. In this case, no au­tho­riza­tion is required for down­load­ing via direct link. If content should only be available to par­tic­u­lar user groups, then the cor­re­spond­ing files can be given a password.

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Plesk tutorial: how to use file sharing

To set up Plesk file sharing, you need the current version of Plesk as well as a server on which you can install it. A re­quire­ment for in­stal­la­tion and setup is that you also have root per­mis­sions for the server, as well as at least the following hardware con­di­tions:

Linux Windows
512 MB RAM plus 1 GB swap (storage space) 2 GB RAM
10 GB hard drive storage 30 GB hard drive storage

Setting up file sharing in Plesk

If you’ve installed and con­fig­ured the ad­min­is­tra­tion software on your server, then set up file sharing as follows:

  1. Log in to your ad­min­is­tra­tor account in the Plesk panel and open the settings menu, then select the “Tools & Settings” section. There, you’ll find the entry “File Sharing” under the list of general settings, which takes you to the con­fig­u­ra­tion menu.
Image: Plesk web host edition: Tools & Settings
The Plesk interface clearly separates settings for the various ad­min­is­tra­tion areas such as security, analysis, or server con­fig­u­ra­tion
  1. First, set the root folder for file sharing under “Web Folder root URL”. All sub­di­rec­to­ries that you create for file sharing are now placed in this folder. If you want to further protect the trans­mis­sion, you can also activate the gen­er­a­tion of secure links to files and folders via SSL/TLS.
Image: Plesk: File Sharing Settings
Give your Plesk file sharing ad­di­tion­al security with secured links
  1. If Plesk users should have the op­por­tu­ni­ty to make uploaded files public, for example, so that all visitors to a website can access them, then in the next step you’ll enable the check box “Enable public files”. It’s also necessary to name two ad­di­tion­al folders: The first is the folder in which au­tho­rized users can store and edit files (“Folder for public files storage”). The second URL is the directory for read-only website visitor access to published files.
Image: File sharing configuration in Plesk
Website visitors that access the public Plesk file sharing directory can only access uploaded files (without their own write per­mis­sions)
  1. Finally, you can also specify a password-protected file upload folder that is only ac­ces­si­ble to au­tho­rized users. For this, enable the option “Enable password-pro­tec­tion of public files” and enter the desired directory names. You can also specify user names as well as the access password.
Image: Plesk configuration menu for file access
With a password-protected directory, you can make a Plesk file sharing platform for an exclusive user group
  1. Click on “OK” or “Apply” to confirm and save your file access settings.
Image: Plesk save buttons
You can change the settings for Plesk file sharing at any time. But don’t forget to notify users of changes to URLs and logins

Uploading files – how it works

After you’ve created the folders for file sharing, you or all au­tho­rized users can upload files to the re­spec­tive di­rec­to­ries. To access the cor­re­spond­ing menu, click on either the “File Sharing” button in the nav­i­ga­tion list (as an ad­min­is­tra­tor) or open a sub­scrip­tion belonging to the server ad­min­is­tra­tor and select the “File Sharing” tab there.

Image: Plesk user interface: Websites & Domains
File uploads function over the standard Plesk interface – without the use of ad­di­tion­al software

In the accessed Plesk file sharing section you can now upload one or more files si­mul­ta­ne­ous­ly to one of the following locations:

  • Personal files: All files that are uploaded as personal files are ex­clu­sive­ly visible by the user as well as the ad­min­is­tra­tors. For the later direct download link, ad­min­is­tra­tor access in­for­ma­tion is required.
  • Shared files: Shared files are visible by all users that have file sharing enabled with Plesk. For download via direct link – like with personal files – ad­min­is­tra­tor access in­for­ma­tion is required.
  • Public files: Publicly shared files are visible by all file sharing users and can also be down­loaded without au­then­ti­ca­tion.
  • Password-protected files: Password-protected files differ from ordinary public files in that they can only be down­loaded with the cor­re­spond­ing login data.
Image: File sharing menu in Plesk
In the file sharing section of Plesk you can create and manage upload folders, upload files, or create and share download links

You have various pos­si­bil­i­ties for sharing files in different di­rec­to­ries, though they all differ slightly from one another. The following short in­struc­tions explain in detail how to proceed.

Upload files as “Personal Files”

To upload files in your personal folder, simply click on the “Upload Files” button and select “Personal Files” in the list. You can also use “Browse” to specify where the desired upload file is located in your local system. If you want to upload multiple files si­mul­ta­ne­ous­ly, you can use the “Add file” button. Check the box for “E-mail links to the uploaded files” if you want to send the matching links for the download of the file. Clicking on “Upload” starts the upload process.

Image: Plesk upload menu
In addition to the main storage folders, the upload manager also lists all sub­fold­ers so that you can save your files directly in the desired directory

Share files as “Shared Files”

If you want to share files with all au­tho­rized users, you have two options: For the first, you proceed as with the upload of personal files, but instead select “Shared Files” in the list. The second option is to simply move a file from your personal directory to the shared folder. To do this, select the cor­re­spond­ing file in the “Personal Files” folder and click on the “Share” button. Confirm the share by clicking “OK” in the dialog window that pops up.

Image: Menu window for Plesk file sharing
If you use the share button to share files, then Plesk uses the main folder “Shared” by default. By clicking on the plus sign, you can also select a created subfolder

Publish files as “Public Files”

If you want to make files available to all website visitors, you also have two options, which differ only slightly from the “Shared Files” approach: On the one hand, you can use the standard way described above via “Upload Files”, in which case you select the third button, “Public Files”. On the other hand, you have the option to publish pre­vi­ous­ly saved personal and shared files by clicking the “Publish” button.

Image: “Shared Files” menu
Plesk allows you to use the “Publish” button for pub­lish­ing files on the web in both your private and shared folders

Share files with password-pro­tec­tion

For password-protected file sharing with Plesk, first upload files as “Shared Files” and then – like with sharing public files – use the “Publish” button. In the window that opens, check the box next to “Protect access to files with a password” and then confirm the pub­li­ca­tion with “OK”. The username and password for accessing the files cor­re­spond to the in­for­ma­tion you provided when you set up file sharing (step 4).

Image: Window for Plesk file sharing
Thanks to password pro­tec­tion, you can share files with desired visitors to your website with Plesk
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