When you access your Plesk Control panel for the first time, you may see a warning that looks like this:

This warning happens because there is no SSL certificate configured for your Plesk Control Panel and it is safe to bypass it.

To bypass this error, click on "Advanced" and then click on the "Proceed to …(unsafe)" button. You should now be brought to your Plesk control Panel. You may notice that the web browser is showing that the connection is not secure:

This error is caused for the same reason as before and can be ignored. If you would like to make this error go away, follow the steps below.

STEP 1: You will need to pick a domain name that you would like to use for your control panel. This could be a regular domain name like "mydomain.com" or it could be a subdomain like "controlpanel.mydomain.com".

STEP 2: You will need to change the hostname of the VPS server to match the domain name that you've selected. At the moment, this can only be done by contacting our Customer Support Centre (although we are working on allowing you to do it yourself, stay tuned) or by contacting the Rebel VPS manager (joey@rebel.com). The Hostname will be changed by us for free as soon as we can.

STEP 3: Once the hostname is changed, you can confirm that it is correct by logging in via SSH to your VPS and typing in the command:

hostname

This will display the current hostname of your server.

STEP 4: Log into your Plesk Control Panel. Go into "Tools and Settings" and then "Server Settings". Make sure that the "Full Hostname" field is the same as the hostname of your VPS. If it is different, correct it here and click "Ok" at the bottom of this page to save.

STEP 5: The final step is to install an SSL certificate for the control panel. This can be done by going to "Tools and Settings" and the "SSL/TLS Certificates". You can upload a new certificate from any SSL provider. After you have an SSL Certificate installed, you can update the certificate for securing Plesk on this page to your new certificate. You are now done and your Plesk control panel has a valid certificate.

If at any point during these steps you run into issues or would like some help, don't hesitate to contact us at our Customer Support Centre. We will be happy to get you up and running.