First Time With Ssl And Certificates

[iphonogasm]

Hi,

 

I am looking at purchasing a SSL certificate, for my website, mailserver and to familiarise myself with using and deploying SSL

 

I have a few questions

 

- i have found a company offering SSL certificates for just $5/yr. whats the benefits/downfall of getting a cheap certificate. Obviously using mainly for myself and learning i dont want spend 200+

 

- Can i use a single SSL certificate for Mail, HTTP etc, or are these all specific to the service i want to apply ssl?

 

 

Thanks

[ICTCity]

Honestly I don't know why some companies offer SSL certs for 5$... maybe they work, maybe not... I never tried. Usually I bought certs on godaddy: http://www.godaddy.com/ssl/ssl-certificates.aspx?ci=9039

 

Have you tried googling the name of the company which sells that cert for 5$? Maybe you can find some unsatisfated user...

 

It's also true that 5$ are almost nothing... and this is for "testing" purpose... so... try it ) you don't have confidential data )

 

 

SSL doesn't check the service, it looks at the hostname. If you buy a cert for mail.mydomain.com this will be issued for mail.mydomain.com :)

[iphonogasm]

Thanks for your reply,

 

Judging by reviews, the look very good. So i might just go ahead and get myself a SSL certificate and then i have SSL for my website and MAIL.

 

:)

 

Thanks!

[AWS]

I buy my certs from Namecheap. They cost me $9 per domain per year.

 

There is a bug in IIS when installing certificates. It will error after it reads the CSR. Even though it does error the cert is installed. You have to do a refresh to get it in the list.

[iphonogasm]

Thanks for this help guys! This will be useful.

 

Im getting 1 in about 2 hours for 2 years. Should i go with namecheap then?

 

1 more thing, how to insert? Just IIS management, Server Certificates then Import? cause it asks for the Certificate "file"

 

maybe they issue a download of the certificate when purchased?

 

Thanks!

[ICTCity]

It works more or less in this way:

 

You receive a cert, open IIS import and give the file just received. The auth process will continue until your cert is confirmed. At this point you should receive something else per e-mail (usually) which is the last part of your file. Upload it to IIS and done )

[iphonogasm]

Thanks,

 

just purchased and here where im stuck on the site activating it.

 

Note: If an SSL certificate is being issued for an IDN (Internationalized Domain Name), a "common name" field of a CSR must be a punycode of the domain (also known as ASCII compatible encoding, or ACE) e.g. xn--aussergewhnliches-7zb.com. Including common name in native characters will result in an error.

www.domain.com vs. domain.com:

For RapidSSL certificate when the SSL certificate is bought for www.example.com, it secures both www.example.com & example.com. If RapidSSL is purchased for example.com it secures only example.com. Please make sure you use correct common name in your CSR.

 

I entered my domain www.megahosting.co.nz and it gives me a error too short!

 

I get this error

 

Error

Unable to parse CSR.

Error from service provider. More Info:Error Details: -1001: Unable to decode CSR data. Key size may be too large.

 

Thanks!

[ICTCity]

Welcome to the beautiful World of certs )

 

Create a new CSR request from IIS :)

[iphonogasm]

CSR created, just waiting for verification now )

[iphonogasm]

Just a quick thought and question

 

I have generated this CSR for my certificate, however i didnt specify who it was going to ie. cheepssls.com

 

Is this like DNS proporgation where its global?

 

Thanks!

[ICTCity]

I think that in your request there's already something that knows where to go :)

[iphonogasm]

sweet as its been about an hour now and still nothing :(

[ICTCity]

welcome again :)

 

Wait... Wait... Wait... And... Wait...

[iphonogasm]

tech support is telling me they are not receiving my CSRs?

[ICTCity]

Errors on windows side?

[iphonogasm]

No, well this is weird

 

I have to manually go to the website and activate it and enter the CSR. Then i am emailed the cert.

 

So whats the point in sending a request?

[ICTCity]

It should be automatic... Bah...

[iphonogasm]

wait and see :) how exciting

[iphonogasm]

So it appears, with the cheaper ssl certs, that nothing is displayed in the browser to show that my website is SSL secure? Like the pittle green bar before tge address bar

 

Does this sound correct

[ICTCity]

Mhhhh no you should see the lock before "HTTPS".

 

If you type HTTPS://yoursite do you have something?

[iphonogasm]

Mhhhh no you should see the lock before "HTTPS".

 

If you type HTTPS://yoursite do you have something?

 

Ok, havnt tried yet as im having isses installing the cert. the intermediate cert is in a different format then iis will let me insert it as, and this is after following the provided instructions.

 

So there will be no green bar correct? Thats for the more expensive certs right?

 

 

[iphonogasm]

So chating with tech support again (supply online chat which is quite good).

 

what im having trouble with it getting the cert into a .PFX

 

I have inserted the Imtermediate certificate.But still nothing shows in IIS however i have not imported via a PFX

 

heres the article im following

 

https://knowledge.rapidssl.com/support/ssl-certificate-support/index?page=content&actp=CROSSLINK&id=so16219

 

Thanks!

[ICTCity]

I don't understand what is the green bar you are talking...

 

but now you have the cert installed or not? What happens if you type HTTPS your site.com?

[iphonogasm]

This green bar :)

 

[ATTACH]189.IPB[/ATTACH]

 

i cannot add the binding as its asking for the certificate at which i cannot get installed!

 

Thanks!

 

UPDATE: So heres the thing. Im really having problems with importing this certificate. Usually im quite good at converting file formats etc for different audio and video formats and what not, however, this is really hard.

 

IIS appears to want a PFX format, however i cannot find anyway to convert to a PFX

 

I have opened the MMC snap in console, opened the snap in for certificates, and my certificate is in "Personal" folder. I also had to add something to the "Intermediate Certificate Authorities" Folder.

 

Whys this so hard for me lol?

 

Thanks!

 

ANOTHER UPDATE: I have created a temporary self-signed certificate. You should now be able to reach https://megahosting.co.nz, of course the certificate is not trusted though as its a temporary self-signed cert!

[ICTCity]

Yes it works.

 

Ask your SSL provider... Maybe they can give you another format.

 

From what I know you can't convert certs files.