Installing Free SSL Certificate for Rackspace Cloud Server

Installing Free SSL Certificate for Rackspace Cloud Server needs few steps those are not very difficult but needs a bit proper guidance so that you can do it yourself. For Rackspace Cloud Sites, you can not use this Installing Free SSL Certificate method, you have to pay in the way we described in the guide for using SSL Certificate for WordPress on Rackspace Cloud Sites.

Installing Free SSL Certificate for Rackspace Cloud Server : Basics

The basics for installing Free SSL Certificate for Rackspace Cloud Server, is just the reasons we pointed in the articles like in the article on Extended Validation SSL Certificate. StartSSL provides free SSL certificate since quite past few years and apparently their service is quite safe. Only thing you have to remember, you need to re-validate it. Their Free SSL Certificate is really Free and is quite good for those who want for a new fresh website like starting a blog.

Steps for Installing Free SSL Certificate for Rackspace Cloud Server

If you have not already installed anything on your Cloud VPS, you can follow any of our guide like installing WordPress on Rackspace Cloud Server for command line installation. In this guide for Installing Free SSL Certificate for Rackspace Cloud Server, we will not go in that details of Command Line works except the setup of virtual host.

For Installing Free SSL Certificate for Rackspace Cloud Server from StartSSL, point your browser to :

http://www.startssl.com/

On the left top corner you will find the graphical area to click for signing up. It is an easy to fill form, just carefully fill it up to avoid any error. You will get a verification code via email and it is the first step of your verification. The second step is after entering this verification code. They will probably checks for any fraudulent activity with the submitted data and it depends on your country how much time it will take to receive the second verification email. If if does not arrives withing six hours, then contact them.

On your “Welcome to StartSSL™ PKI” webpage, you will notice the Free Option :

Understand the points for Installing Free SSL Certificate for Rackspace Cloud Server :

You need a High Grade Private Key, generate it in this way :

It will prompt you to install the certificate on your computer. You must accept it.

The second point is, you need a domain certificate for server. There are many wizard based options, you need to select from the dropdown :

This is a wizard based fully guided instruction and frankly needs not much explanation. Everything is written there. At the end of the wizard you will get the PEM encoded certificate, which is basically like arbitrary numbers. They have instructions for Apache, nginx etc server software, since Apache is mostly used, we are giving the example with Apache.

Adding to mod_ssl.so has advantages over httpd.conf.

LoadModule ssl_module modules/mod_ssl.so

Edit it, notice the difference with a normal virtual host setup.

Listen 443

<VirtualHost _default_:443>
 DocumentRoot /home/httpd/private
 ErrorLog /usr/local/apache/logs/error_log
 TransferLog /usr/local/apache/logs/access_log
 SSLEngine on
 SSLProtocol all -SSLv2
 SSLCipherSuite ALL:!ADH:!EXPORT:!SSLv2:RC4+RSA:+HIGH:+MEDIUM
 SSLCertificateFile /usr/local/apache/conf/ssl.crt
 SSLCertificateKeyFile /usr/local/apache/conf/ssl.key
 SSLCertificateChainFile /usr/local/apache/conf/sub.class1.server.ca.pem
 SSLCACertificateFile /usr/local/apache/conf/ca.pem
 SetEnvIf User-Agent ".*MSIE.*" nokeepalive ssl-unclean-shutdown
 CustomLog /usr/local/apache/logs/ssl_request_log \
 "%t %h %{SSL_PROTOCOL}x %{SSL_CIPHER}x \"%r\" %b"
</VirtualHost>

SSLEngine on – yes, this makes the whole server secured and we are forcing to listen to secured port 443 instead of port 80.

There is specific thing to be mentioned about Rackspace Servers, for this installing Free SSL Certificate for Rackspace Cloud Server guide. You need to remember to use SSL (url or any special instructions) for Load Balancers (if you use), Database (if you use Cloud Database), Cloud Files etc. Do not forget to redirect your http to https via .htaccess if you use SSL for whole server.