The table below shows the list of directories that Plesk creates for each virtual host. Note that Plesk does not add all the directories by default. It creates some of the directories only when the website owner needs them. Such directories are marked as created On demand. For example, after a customer adds a website, it does not have the /web_users directory. Plesk will create it only after the customer adds their first web user.

  Directories Tree     User Permissions Description Created
\<VHOST>       None    
  .plesk     List contents   Always
    \statistics<domain_name>\   List contents Statistics directory Always
      \anon_ftpstat List contents Anonymous FTP statistics Always
      \ftpstat List contents FTP user statistics Always
      \webstat List contents HTTP user statistics Always
    .security   Read Security settings Always
    .web.<user>.security   Read   On demand
  \anon_ftp     List contents Anonymous FTP files On demand
  \cgi-bin     List contents CGI scripts On demand
  \error_docs     List contents Error message files Always
    <doc>.html   Read, write    
  \httpdocs     Full control HTTP documents Always
  \logs     Full control Logs of web services, web applications, and certain Plesk extensions (for example Git) Always
    \FailedRequests   Full control Failed Requests Tracing logs Always
    \iis   Read IIS logs of the subscription’s domains and subdomains. Always
    \php_errors   Full control PHP logs of the subscription’s domains and subdomains Always
  \web_users     None Web users’ directory On demand
    \<web_user>   None    
  \<subdomain>     Full control HTTP and HTTPs documents of a subdomain On demand
  \<domain>     Full control HTTP and HTTPs documents of an additional domain On demand

Differences from Previous Versions

The structure described above was introduced in Plesk 11.5. It has the following differences compared to the structure of earlier Plesk versions:

  • Some directories are created on demand. Previously, all the directories were created by default.
  • The following directories have different locations:
Old Location New Location Comment
\statistics \.plesk\statistics Statistics directory
\statistics\logs \logs Virtual host logs
\.security \.plesk\.security Security settings
\.web.<user>.security \.plesk\.security  
  • The following directories are not included in Plesk virtual hosts:
    • \httpsdocs
    • \subdomains
    • \private