A couple of points of note:

1.) Your HOST has a lot to do with how Plesk is set-up. You have incorrectly assumed that the folks at Parallels just drop off a ready-made piece of hardware with CentOS installed and everything is ready to go. That’s not at all how it happens; your host is fully responsible for a major share of the set-up. The problems you are complaining about are either your host’s fault, or your own.

2.) Regarding your comment about the MySQL databases — again, this is your host’s fault, not Plesk’s. My host is mediaTemple, they use Plesk 8.3, and I can’t even change MySQL passwords through phpMyAdmin. Your host improperly configured MySQL and phpMyAdmin, not Plesk.

3.) What do you mean in your comment numbered “2″? You say that “Customizable httpd.include per domain does not work with
vhost.conf”. What are you even talking about? The two files ARE linked together and DO work together. My guess is that you modified one of these files AND FORGOT TO REFRESH THE PLESK CONFIGURATION:

/usr/local/psa/admin/bin/websrvmng -a

See this URL for more details (valid through at least Plesk 8.3): http://www.gadberry.com/aaron/2006/02/09/plesk_vhost/

With respect to your open_base_dir comment, you HAVE TO SPECIFY WHICH DIRECTORIES SHOULD BE CONSIDERED ALLOWED. It would be a major security oversight if the default was to have NO open_basedir restriction! All you had to do was specify the proper path to your scripts in the base_dir area of your vhost.conf file. furthermore, those scripts can be MOVED outside of the httpdocs root and include()’d by a file that is not nearly as revealing. Your vhost.conf would thus include something like this:

php_admin_value open_basedir “/var/www/vhosts/yoursite.com/protected_scripts”

(don’t forget to refresh the Plesk configuration with the command referenced above).

Basically, it sounds like you’re new to Plesk, you’re lost, unwilling to consult the help files (or use a search engine), and unwilling to hold your host accountable for any of it.

Somehow, I’m not surprised.

‘Limited customization – It’s very hard to efficiently implement per-tenant database schema customization in a single database, and it’s not possible to use standard DBMS tools – like built-in indexing. Plus, the multi-tenant application cannot use script-based customization of the internal logic – what if a buggy script loops infinitely?

SmoothSpan Bob Warfield and Unreasonable Men argued that customization capabilities are often excessive and there is little harm in removing much of that flexibility. For newly written applications, it might even be true. But if an ISV has a customer base to migrate to SaaS model, telling customers that their solutions will be broken because some of the customizations don’t work anymore is hardly an option.’

Apparently Plesk is not heading their own blog…LOL because we all are doing nothing but loosing functionality and the ability to see what is going on, on our sites.

I’m paying an extra 10 bucks a month for this Plesk thing which basically has reduced my site to nothing.
1. AwStats which is just as important as Apache does not function at all.
2. Customizable httpd.include per domain does not work with
vhost.conf and since Plesk is an unsecured script, (because it must run with open base directory on), we have lost HUGE functionality. You do not see this problem with or like this Cpanel at ALL!
In the past 10 years I have had only 2 problems with Cpanel both related to the file manager and editor, very minor and were fixed in the next version. When I say fixed I don’t mean they said it was fixed and it wasn’t, it means it was fixed and has worked perfectly ever since.
3. If you change your MySql Passwords in phpMyAdmin i.e. outside of Plesk then you can not reach MySql any more. This implies that Plesk is storing your passwords outside the data base in unsecured fashion.
There are many more too.

I guess Plesk is like windows 3.1 and Cpanel is like linux

Now if you think I’m a little more than perturbed with Plesk you’d be correct. However, I have spent the last three weeks messing around with Plesk because it doesn’t work rather than having my attention on my business and customers where it belongs. Can Plesk comprehend the ramifications of placing UNTESTED, UVALIDATED and weak performing code (Plesk) on a server and claiming it to be a management utility?

Plesk should not be recommended for any server under any conditions until Plesk can function properly

–reconfigure-vhost –vhost-name=plesk.domain.com

and then restart apache, the config will be written into httpd.include and wont be overwritten every time you start the server