Parallels Virtualization and Automation Software

RESOLUTION

SWsoft Plesk Autoinstaller/Autoupdater tool installs/updates not only Plesk itself but also checks for available updates of components that are not part of Plesk but which Plesk highly depends on, such as apache web server, mysql server and so on. The difference between Plesk for Linux and Plesk for FreeBSD is that

- Linux application updates from operating system vendor come as compiled RPMs, FreeBSD application updates in general are done with application port recompilation. So that Plesk for FreeBSD update usually takes more time, because recompilation takes more time then RPM update,

- Application ports in FreeBSD ports collection are frequently updated and modified, sometimes manual actions are required during port update (they are described in /usr/ports/UPDATING file) and if some third port compilation fails then it will cause that Plesk update interrupts in the middle. In this case you need to find out compilation failure reason, correct it and re-run Plesk update. Of course, RPM update failures on Linux system also happen, but probability of compilation failure is higher then RPM update failure.

So that Plesk update on FreeBSD system in general may take more time and has more chances to interrupt. And the following rules help to make installation and update process safer:

- update to the latest Plesk version is preferred then to earlier version because the latest Plesk version is more convenient to fresher FreeBSD ports,

- download and use the latest console autoinstaller utility from Plesk download pages at www.swsoft.com,

- if autoinstaller notifies that port collection on your server differs from ports snapshot used during Plesk QA tests, agree to update your collection to Plesk tested one,

- run update when your clients activity is low and keep in mind that update may take more time then you think if interruption happen,

In general it may also be a good idea to have a test copy of server with the same operating system and applications installed for upgrade tests before upgrade of production servers.