SSL certificate without the need for an IP address?

feenster99 · 20 Jan 2006 at 19:01

Hi all,
Does anyone know of an SSL certificate selling company that doesn't require an IP address to attach the certificate to, so a site on shared hosting can have a dedicated SSL?

Matt

Adz · 20 Jan 2006 at 19:39

You need a dedicated IP as, due to the nature of SSL, the entire transaction is encrypted - virtual hosting relies on host headers which can't be read over an SSL connection until after the 'handshake' by which time it's too late whereas with IP based hosting, the webserver already knows which site is being requested.

Ask your hosting provider - they shouldn't have any problem with assigning you a dedicated IP, either for free or for a nominal fee.

feenster99 · 20 Jan 2006 at 22:51

Adz, unfortunately, this is Fasthosts we are talking about. They are very reluctant to do anything to help. The reseller forum has a long thread from customers complaining that they are very limited as to the types of sites they can host. Fasthosts replied 12 months saying they were looking into it and nothing else has been done.

Surely they can't use a wildly different setup to everyone else?

Matt

Adz · 20 Jan 2006 at 22:56

If they're that inflexible, move

.

I'm afraid there's no other way you can do it unless they provide some sort of 'shared ssl' space which you can upload to which would be something along the lines of https://secure.fasthosts.co.uk/yoursite - the certificate would be in the name of secure.fasthosts.co.uk.

Edit: Fasthosts market themselves as a business provider - there must be some way of having a dedicated IP + SSL certificate. Perhaps you're just on the wrong package.

feenster99 · 20 Jan 2006 at 23:02

Well, I have had a good scout round and we can't really match Fasthosts for the package we get for the price. Unfortunately, they do not do any dedicated IP's on any package (except dedicated servers). E.g., this is their Reseller package:
http://www.fasthosts.co.uk/resellers/pricing/

The shared hosting wouldn't be sufficient for a couple of reasons - our clients would definately not want to have the shared space used on their sites. Secondly, I like to use Linux webspace, and the shared SSL space is hosted on Windows regardless of what package you choose.

Matt

Adz · 20 Jan 2006 at 23:09

Then I'm afraid you're stuck between a rock and a hard place. I have to say I'm very surprised that Fasthosts don't offer the ability to install an SSL certificate on your own domain on their shared hosting packages - they must lose a lot of business because of it.

In that case your options are to either take out a Fasthosts dedicated server, to move to another hosting company (check out www.ochostreview.co.uk - I can guarantee the top 2 providers in the list will let you have a dedicated IP/SSL) or to live with it...

feenster99 · 20 Jan 2006 at 23:12

We have just bought a dedicated server from Fasthosts, but it throws up its own range of problems that I won't go into here. But yes, i'm sure they have lost some business and annoyed a number of customers over it - however, complaining gets you nowhere as they are too big to be bothered about true customer service.

Matt

Beansprout · 20 Jan 2006 at 23:14

Sadly you get what you pay for

Fasthosts even charge for a MySQL database on their starter Linux packages :/

It seems they offer SSL on this package, although it isn't a reseller account. But I can't really understand their reseller account anyway...looks like it just lets you sell their packages?

Edit: Ah, the above is shared:

Run ecommerce and other secure web applications with 10 MB of SSL shared web space.

Beansprout · 20 Jan 2006 at 23:15

Adz said:
In that case your options are to either take out a Fasthosts dedicated server, to move to another hosting company (check out www.ochostreview.co.uk - I can guarantee the top 2 providers in the list will let you have a dedicated IP/SSL) or to live with it...

I agree

I may also add that the fourth company on the list there can do the same

(infact, probably all the top 10 except one or two I'm not sure about)

feenster99 · 20 Jan 2006 at 23:28

Even the package you point out has shared SSL space only. They simply do not offer it

And yes, they charge for MySQL on everything.

I guess we will stick to the dedicated server for the time being. Shame the control panel is so poor (Matrix control panel). Should be able to install something like Webmin though I guess.

Matt

Beansprout · 20 Jan 2006 at 23:31

Webmin is great for the price

Andyt_uk · 21 Jan 2006 at 14:25

little bit of a thread hijack but i'm also trying to get SSL working on my site. Currently i have apache running with openldap which connects to an active directory on another box which handles the authentication. Now at the moment, passwords are sent in plain text which works perfectly fine, but obviously i'd like to use SSL.

I created a certificate from the Certificate Authority(the box running Active Directory) and have openSSL running on the apache server. In those configs i point it to the certificates that it generated for me. Unfortunately it doesn't seem to work. Using ethereal it sets up the connection but fails due to "unknown CA".

Basically if anyones managed to get this working before i'd like to know as theres no real guides for it anywhere and even the ones on microsofts site dont work properly.

Anyway, maybe a bit complicated/confusing and once again sorry for the hijack

but any help appreciated.