What SSL Certificate Do I Need?

  • Resolved Andrew

    (@arapps92)


    4 years, 1 month ago

    I’m setting up a multisite for a client who wants to use different domains (not subdomains or subdirectories). The subsites will be setup by subdomains, and then will be changed to full domains using Domain Mapping:
    maindomain.com
    site1.maindomain.com –> site1.com
    site2.maindomain.com –> site2.com

    Anyway, what SSL certificate do I need for this setup? I bought a Wildcard SSL but now I think I’ve made a mistake and that won’t work for this?

    I’m finding it hard to find a definitive answer to this. Can someone please confirm if a Wildcard SSL will work or do I need a different type of SSL?

Viewing 6 replies - 1 through 6 (of 6 total)

  • I expect you need a Multi-Domain (SAN).

    However, the way I do it in C-Panel shared hosting with AutoSSL/Letencrypt is to just add domain aliases to the multisite account – and AutoSSL does the rest.

    Thread Starter Andrew

    (@arapps92)

    The subsite domains will be added as add-on domains to the main account in cPanel. So I will need a multi domain SSL, and the Wildcard SSL won’t work?

    As I said -I use domain aliases – but I think add-on works but you then get (redundant)folders ( and emails if you configure ).

    I’m no expert on SSLs and less so since Lestencrypt became defacto

    but as far as understand a wildcard refers to subdomains, and is verified just under the one TLD

    e.g
    https://www.example.com
    xzy.example.com
    *.example.com

    Where as multidomain, allows multiple domains to be verified in one certificate is just that. And multi domain wildcard allows subdomains of the verified TLD.

    The point on either is you have to verify the TLD – you can’t just have a random domain SSL without a verification method.

    • This reply was modified 4 years, 1 month ago by Alan Fuller.

    So far, I just threw my hands up at this problem on my own sites and used Cloudflare and let’s Encrypt or whatever they used to run the individual sites secure from Cloudflare out. That means the origin site runs exposed but I think that the Cloudflare plugin has something to fix that, too.

    The Cloudflare Proxy will hide the origin pretty well so on a new site that seems ‘good enough’.

    Since I wasn’t running storefronts or looking for any other compliance issues that seemed prudent and let me attend to other matters.

    Maybe that will help you some.

    Thread Starter Andrew

    (@arapps92)

    @alanfuller Thank you for your advice. We went with adding the domains as aliases in cPanel like you suggested. We then activated the free AutoSSLs and that sorted it.

    It annoys me that there is no simple answer out there that says to do this. Hopefully this helps someone else who spent ages searching for a definitive answer.

    Alan Fuller

    (@alanfuller)

    Glad you got it sorted

Viewing 6 replies - 1 through 6 (of 6 total)
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