Set up and configure Plesk in Lightsail - Amazon Lightsail
Create a Plesk instanceConfigure a username and password for your Plesk instance

Set up and configure Plesk in Lightsail

You can create a Plesk hosting stack in Amazon Lightsail that includes the following features.

  • WordPress Toolkit, featuring automation in a graphical user interface

  • Let's Encrypt support for SSL certificates and configuring encrypted (HTTPS) traffic on a single instance

  • FTP access to transfer files to and from your instance

  • Docker Proxy Rules

  • Web-based server management and security tools, including Plesk Firewall, Logs, and ModSecurity

This guide shows you how to create a Plesk instance in Lightsail, and how to sign in to the Plesk panel for the first time by creating a username and password.

Important

If you experience issues after launching your Plesk instance, go to the Plesk support page to see if there are updates that need to be installed on the instance. For more information, see the Plesk help center and Plesk Updates in the Plesk Documentation and Help Portal.

Create a Plesk instance

Complete the following steps to create a Plesk instance in Lightsail.

  1. Sign in to the Lightsail console at https://lightsail.aws.amazon.com/.

  2. In the Instances tab of the Lightsail home page, choose Create instance.

  3. Choose the location where you want to create your instance.

    Choose Change AWS Region and Availability Zone to change your instance location.

  4. Under Apps + OS, choose Plesk Hosting Stack on Ubuntu.

  5. Choose your instance plan.

    Note

    Plesk is not supported on the $3.50 USD per month Lightsail plan.

  6. Enter a name for your instance.

    Resource names:

    • Must be unique within each AWS Region in your Lightsail account.

    • Must contain 2 to 255 characters.

    • Must start and end with an alphanumeric character or number.

    • Can include alphanumeric characters, numbers, periods, dashes, and underscores.

  7. Choose one of the following options to add tags to your instance:

    • Add key-only tags or Edit key-only tags (if tags have already been added). Enter your new tag into the tag key text box, and press Enter. Choose Save when you’re done entering your tags to add them, or choose Cancel to not add them.

      Key-only tags in the Lightsail console.

    • Create a key-value tag, then enter a key into the Key text box, and a value into the Value text box. Choose Save when you’re done entering your tags, or choose Cancel to not add them.

      Key-value tags can only be added one at a time before saving. To add more than one key-value tag, repeat the previous steps.

      Key-value tags in the Lightsail console.
    Note

    For more information about key-only and key-value tags, see Tags.

  8. Choose Create instance.

    The instance requires a few minutes to provision and become available after you create it.

    Note

    If you want to use Plesk on Amazon Lightsail for web hosting, you should attach a static IP address to your instance. If you attach a static IP, you will need to reboot your instance in Lightsail before you can log into it for the first time.

Configure a username and password for your Plesk instance

Complete the following steps to configure a username and password for your Plesk instance, and sign in to the Plesk panel for the first time.

  1. In the Instances tab of the Lightsail home page, choose the SSH quick connect icon for the Plesk instance that you want to set up.

    Connect to your Plesk on Amazon Lightsail instance

  2. Enter the following command.

    sudo plesk login | grep -v internal:8

    You should see a result similar to the following example.

    One-time sign in for your Plesk instance.
    Important

    If you recently attached a static IP to your Plesk instance, you might get a one-time login URL that uses the old public IP address. Reboot the instance, and run the above command again to get a one-time login URL that uses the new static IP address.

  3. Highlight the URL shown in the browser-based SSH window, then choose the clipboard icon, and copy the URL to your local clipboard.

    The clipboard for the web-based SSH session.

  4. Open a new browser window, and browse to the URL that you copied.

    You might see a browser warning that your connection is not private, not secure, or that there’s a security risk. This happens because your Plesk instance does not yet have an SSL/TLS certificate applied to it. The prompt may be different than what is shown in the following example depending on the browser you use.

    Chrome warning for private connection.

  5. Complete one of the following steps depending on the browser that you use:

    • Chrome — Choose Advanced, and then choose Proceed to continue to the Plesk set up page.

    • Edge — Choose Details, and then choose Go on to the webpage (Not recommended) to continue to the Plesk set up page.

    • Firefox — Choose Advanced, and then choose Accept the Risk and Continue to continue to the Plesk set up page.

    • Internet Explorer — Choose More information, and then choose Go on to the webpage (Not recommended) to continue to the Plesk set up page.

  6. Enter your contact name, email address, and password.

    In this page, you can change the default admin contact name if you prefer to use something different. However, that is only the display name; your username to sign in to Plesk will continue to be admin.

    Configuring your username, and password, for Plesk.

  7. Confirm that you accept the end-user license agreement, and choose Enter Plesk.

    If successful, you will be signed in to the Plesk panel where you can add your domain, and begin managing your websites.

    The Plesk panel.

If you need to sign in again later, just navigate to https://PublicIPAddress:8443. Replace PublicIPAddress with the public IP address or static IP address of your instance. For example, https://192.0.2.0/:8443. Then enter the username and password you created earlier to sign in to the Plesk panel.

For more information about using Plesk, see Getting Started with Managing Websites in Plesk in the Plesk Documentation and Help Portal.