First, download the Zend framework and unzip the file contents to a location. At the time of the writing ZendFramework-1.11.12 was in use and we have used that version in this example. Key content of the download is the /library folder which has Zend libraries in it.

Then, go to the “conf” folder that was created when the site was created.

Inside the conf folder, create a new file and name it vhost.conf

Add the below contents to vhost.conf and save it.

DocumentRoot /var/www/sitename/public

php_admin_value include_path ".:/var/www/ZendFramework-1.11.12/library:/var/www/sitename/library"
php_admin_value open_basedir "/var/www/ZendFramework-1.11.12/library:/var/www/sitename:/var/www/sitename/application"
DirectoryIndex index.php index.html
AllowOverride All
Order allow,deny
Allow from all

As you can notice in the above code, we have added the path location to /public, /library and /application folder that comes with Zend framework download. Path of the sitename will need to be changed to the location specific to your site. This is the correct method of setting Zend Framework in a PLESK environment as touching the original conf file can affect the environment as such causing it to have an inconsistent behaviour.

Save the file and restart PLESK configuration manager.

$ /usr/local/psa/admin/sbin/websrvmng -av

Finally, restart apache

$ service httpd restart

Now your website that is setup on Zend Framework will work like a charm.