1. Log in to the server via RDP.

  2. Download Plesk Installer.

  3. Launch the installer with necessary options

    To install Plesk without requiring any user input, run the installer script providing all the necessary information through the corresponding options:

    plesk-installer.exe <OPTIONS> <WINDOWS_OPTIONS>

The following installer options are commonly used when automating Plesk installation.

Option Use Explanation
--source

--source <URL>

or

--source <PATH>

Packages source options define the location where the installer should obtain the Plesk packages for installation. You can use either --source <URL> to specify the URL of a mirror of the Plesk updates server, or --source <PATH> if the packages are found locally on the file system. If you use neither, the Plesk packages will be retrieved from the Plesk updates server.

For information on managing local mirror repositories, see Mirroring Plesk Autoinstall Servers.
--select-release-id --select-release-id <ID>

This option defines what Plesk version will be installed. <ID> is a unique Plesk version identifier (e.g. PANEL_17_0_17_WIN).

View the list of available version IDs for publicly released versions by running:

plesk-installer.exe --show-releases

View the complete list of available version IDs including those intended for product review and testing purposes by running:

plesk-installer.exe --show-releases --skip-branch-filter

--installation-type --installation-type <TYPE>

Choose one of the predefined sets of components for installation: Recommended, Full or Custom.

View the available installation types by running:

plesk-installer.exe --select-release-id <ID> ^ --show-installation-types

--install-component --install-component <COMPONENT_1> [--install-component <COMPONENT_2> [... [--install-component <COMPONENT_N>]]]

Alternatively to --installation-type, you can specify the exact list of components to be installed.

View the complete list of components available for a specific version by running:

plesk-installer.exe --select-release-id <ID> --show-components

The following are the Microsoft Windows-specific installer options. They allow the flexibility to modify the default installation paths.

Option Use Explanation
PLESK_INSTALLDIR --set-option "PLESK_INSTALLDIR=<PATH>" This key designates the part of Plesk data that insignificantly change over time. This includes the application code, configuration files, utilities, and so on.
PLESK_DATADIR --set-option "PLESK_DATADIR=<PATH>" This key designates the part of Plesk data that significantly change over time. This includes customer databases, APS packages, log files, and so on.
PLESK_VHOSTSDIR --set-option "PLESK_VHOSTSDIR=<PATH>" This key designates the path where the contents of all your customers’ domains will be stored. This is typically the largest part of the Plesk contents.

To view the complete list of the installer options, run:

plesk-installer.exe --help

Example 1: Installing Plesk from a mirror, specific components

The following command installs Plesk 17 (release ID is ‘PANEL_17_0_17_WIN’) from a mirror set up on the server ‘mirror.example.com’ available via HTTP. Installation files will temporarily be stored at the %SystemDrive%\Parallels\ folder, and the installation status will be reported to the email admin@example.com. The installed components are base Plesk packages, Microsoft DNS, MailEnable mail server, PHP scripting engine, Presence Builder, and Horde Webmail.

plesk-installer.exe --source http://mirror.example.com/ ^
    --target %SystemDrive%\Parallels ^
    --select-release-id PANEL_17_0_17_WIN ^
    --install-component base ^
    --install-component dns ^
    --install-component mailenable ^
    --install-component php5 ^
    --install-component sitebuilder ^
    --install-component webmail ^
    --notify-email admin@example.com

(The caret ^ character splits a single long command into multiple lines to make it more readable.)

Example 2: Installing Plesk, all available components

The following command performs the complete installation (all available product components are installed) of Plesk 17 (release ID is PANEL_17_0_17_WIN) from the Plesk Update server. All installer output will be redirected to an XML file.

plesk-installer.exe --select-release-id PANEL_17_0_17_WIN ^
     --install-everything --enable-xml-output

Example 3: Installing Plesk to a custom location 

plesk-installer.exe --select-product-id panel ^
     --select-release-id PANEL_17_0_17_WIN ^
     --install-everything ^
     --set-option "PLESK_INSTALLDIR=C:\Plesk Dir" ^
     --set-option "PLESK_DATADIR=C:\Plesk Data" ^
     --set-option "PLESK_VHOSTSDIR=C:\Plesk Vhosts"

(The caret ^ character splits a single long command into multiple lines to make it more readable.)