Adding SSL

[tomarchibold]

I’m newly tasked with managing the website for my employer. It is with GoDaddy. We need to add SSL. I added some new pages to the site and linked to them using https. Two functioned correctly, the other two seemed to automatically forward to the http protocol.

I contacted GoDaddy to ask why this may be. They said that SSL is not enabled for our site, and that the functioning pages may be due to an SSL certificate added from a third party. The prior developer is no longer available, and I am unaware of an SSL applied to the site.

GoDaddy (unbelievably) only offers SSL with certain plans, not the one we have. They suggested installing SSL from a third party, which led me here.

Will I be able to generate a certificate and apply it to our domain. It will need to function sitewide as we add new domains, e.g. https://www.oursite/services or https://www.oursite/about.

[domjh]

Hi @tomarchibold,

If you proxy your site through Cloudflare, you can install an Origin Certificate on your server, which means your visitors will connect to Cloudflare with a certificate managed here and Cloudflare will connect to your server with the origin certificate you install.

The certificates Cloudflare provide will cover your domain and any first level subdomains, so example.com, example.com/anything, subdomain.example.com etc. but not www.subdomain.example.com or toodeep.subdomain.example.com.

Managing Cloudflare Origin CA certificates

[tomarchibold]

Thanks domjh, what does it involve to proxy our site through Cloudflare?

[domjh]

No problem, are you using Cloudflare at all currently? If you are, you check this in the DNS section, records with a symbol are not proxied and those with an one are.

If you are not using Cloudflare currently, you would need to configure your website here and change the nameservers so that all your traffic goes through Cloudflare. If you don’t want this and just want HTTPS on your site, you may want to look elsewhere, such as Let’s Encrypt for free certificates.

[tomarchibold]

@domjh

Let’s Encrypt

I’m not currently using Cloudflare. I usually host elsewhere from GoDaddy, when the nameservers for my employer’s site was change to point there away from GoDaddy, two biz critical email addresses stopped functioning. I realize that I need to set these up at the new host, but the reaction was rather intense and I decided to keep the hosting at GoDaddy.

Therefore, I’d rather not change the nameservers, but try to preserve seamless function of the site and email addresses. I’ll take a look at Let’s Encrypt, which is what my other host provided uses I think.

[domjh]

Cloudflare isn’t a web host, so everything would stay where it currently is and Cloudflare would just sit between your visitors and Cloudflare.

Yes, I’m afraid you will have to look elsewhere for a certificate, since Cloudflare can only provide them if you are using their proxy services here.

[tomarchibold]

Understood, and thank you.