Add SSL certificate to a website

The entire process of adding an SSL certificate can be done in less than 10 minutes:

  1. Purchase a certificate (multi-year is preferred to avoid the hassle of renewing.
  2. Generate a a Certificate Signing Request (CSR)
  3. Request an SSL certificate from an issuing authority.  The issuing authority sends an authorization request to the administrator of the domain in seconds,  The admin authorizes the request.
  4. Downloading the SSL certificate.
  5. Installing the certificate.

The process to re-key SSL certification is almost iddentical to the above.

IONOS offers a free SSL certificate for each domain registered with them.

  1. Go to Secure Your Website with SSL Encryption
  2. Select domain
  3. Activate SSL Certificate and download the private key
  4. Menu > Domain and SSL
  5. Click a domain.
  6. Click SSL Certificate > Manage
  7. Create and Download the .PFX File (the downloaded private key is needed for this step, a new password is also needed.  Remember this password).
  8. Go to IIS > Select Server > IIS > Server Certificate > Import... (on the right) > Select the .PFX file and enter password.
  9. IIS > Select website > Binding... (on the right) > Select https (if nonexistent, create it) > Edit... > Select the imported certificate.

Renew IONOS SSL certificate:

  1. Domains & SSL
  2. Select the domain
  3. SSL certificate > Manage
  4. Renew and get a .key file
  5. SSL Certificate Files > Download .PFX file. In this step, you need to open the private key file (.key) and copy its content to the box and enter a password and remember this password.
  6. Go to IIS > Select Server > IIS > Server Certificate > Import... (on the right) > Select the .PFX file and enter password.
  7. IIS > Select website > Binding... (on the right) > Select https (if nonexistent, create it) > Edit... > Select the imported certificate.

One can use the free Let's Encrypt.  Certify the web is a great application to manage the certificates of Certify the web for different websites on a Windows server.  If a regular SSL certificate is used, one needs to remember to remove the website from Certify the web.  Otherwise Certify the web will update the website's certificate with one from Let's Encrypt automatically.

 

This article was updated on 06:55:36 2024-09-25

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