Customer Services and Complete account management

How do I setup secure webspace and an SSL certificate?
To use SSL encryption on your website you will need two things:

A). A dedicated IP address for your hosting account.
B). An SSL certificate

For SSL secure access, your domain will need an SSL certificate purchased and installed.

Step #1: Purchase a dedicated IP address.

You can purchase your dedicated IP address from within your billing on our web site. Simply login to your Customer Services client area and then go to "My Services" where you will see a list of your current web hosting accounts.

Click on the "View details" icon (Green icon to the right) for the hosting account you wish to purchase your IP address for and scroll down to the "Account add-on's > Click to view account add-on's" where you can then select a dedicated IP address and order it. Once ordered, your IP will be provided within 24 hours for you.

Dedicated IP addresses are charged at £36 per year.

Step #2: Generate your CSR/CRT/Key files

Before you can purchase an SSL certificate from your chosen vendor you will need a CSR (certificate signing request) which you can produce from your SSL Manager link in Cpanel now that you have a dedicated IP. (Cpanel will NOT let you generate these details without first having a dedicated IP address assigned to your account.)

Note that, when asked for your "domain name", you can choose if you want the "www." to be included in your certificate, but if you do enter the "www." as part of your domain name, you must stick to using this full URL all the time in secure areas of your website, and your certificate will be issued to your domain name URL and the same applies without it, if you supply just the domain name only, without any "www." then all secure parts of your website must be referenced without using the www.

You will need the following info to produce your Key/CSR/CRT

* Email address
* host/domain to make SSL certificate for "www.
* country (note that United Kingdom should be GB and NOT UK)
* state
* city
* company name
* company division
* SSL password (Anything you like)

After you have the Key/CRT/CSR you can use this to purchase the certificate. Many good quality SSL Certificate purchase's may require you to prove who you are by either faxing your bank statements or other utility bill to the SSL Company if you have purchased any non-rapid-SSL product.

Please note that our servers use Apache + MOD_SSL, as you will be asked this question when you purchase the SSL certificate.

When you have done this, provide the certificate details to us in a support ticket and we'll install the certificate for you asap. SSL certificate installation is provided free of charge but the process will incur a fee for the dedicated IP address that is required as detailed above.

NOTE: DO NOT UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES REMOVE THE KEY/CSR/CRT files created in cpanel because these are unique and relate only to your SSL certificate. If you ever delete them, you will need to re-create them, then have your SSL certificate re-issued base on the new Key/CSR/CRT files.

Step #3: Purchasing your SSL certificate

To purchase your SSL certificate we recommend starting at http://www.whichssl.com/

After the installation of your SSL certificate you will be able to access your web site via a secure URL.

Please note that we will not install 30 day/free certificates, self signed certificates or certificates from an unrecognised vendor.

If you do ask and pay for a dedicated IP address but do not provide a certificate within 90 days, we reserve the right to revoke your IP without notice or refund. IP addresses are only to be purchased for Secure Certificates.

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