Say you want to buy a SSL certificate or maybe wanting to shift from one host’s shared SSL certificate to another, but are you being held back because of the daunting task of having to install a certificate on your server? That’s all taken care of if you have cPanel/ WHM (Web Host Manager) running on your server. This tutorial is written describing installation of custom SSL certificates. By the end of this you will see how easy it is to install your own custom SSL certificate. Don’t forget to check out the video created for this topic : How to generate and install SSL certificates in WHM?
- As always, be logged into WHM
- Click the SSL/TLS link.
- Getting your own domain-specific SSL certificate installed and working properly is a 3 step process. You have to:
Lets look at each of it now…
Generate a request
- Click the Generate a SSL Certificate and Signing Request link.
- In this table we have to enter information about the domain name the certificate is for.
- Then enter the domain name the certificate will be for.
- In this example, we want to be able to access mybiz123.info securely, like this: https://mybiz123.info, so we’ve entered mybiz123.info. The rest of the information in this form describes who the certificate is for, and will be displayed within the certificate.
- Let’s go ahead and complete the rest of the form.
- Enter an email address where the certificate request information should be emailed.
- When finished, click the Create button.
- That’s it! We’ve just generated a certificate signing request (CSR) and a key, both of which are encrypted.The information would also have been emailed to the email address provided on the previous page, and will be needed later when we go to install the certificate.
Purchase a SSL certificate
You have to go to an SSL certificate vendor to purchase the certificate and they will require the Certificate Signing Request we just generated in Generate a request. Once you’ve successfully purchased the certificate, return to install the it, which we will look at next.
Install the certificate
- Click the Install a SSL Certificate and Setup the Domain link.
- This screen is where you install your newly purchased SSL certificate.
- Enter the domain this certificate is for here (in this case, mybiz123.info) The domain, user and IP address boxes may fill in automatically when you paste your certificate above, but if not…
- The username for this domain goes here (in this case, mybiz123)
- The IP address for the domain goes here (if you don’t know what it is, you can go to list accounts in WHM to look it up).
- If required, the ca bundle should be copied and pasted in here. If you haven’t seen it or do not know what it is, leave this box blank.
- Next you would click this Submit button and the SSL certificate would successfully install.
How to generate and install SSL certificates in WHM?
This is the end of the tutorial. You now know how to generate a SSL certificate signing request and install the certificate in the server.