SSL Certificate for WordPress on Rackspace Cloud Sites needs a bit tweaking to be working flawlessly without duplicate content issue or 404, 500 server errors. We published an introductory article on HTTPS or Secure Hypertext Transfer Protocol before. That was small compared to the extensive technical things needed for really using SSL Certificate. However, it will give an idea about the topic before going to the guide on using SSL Certificate for WordPress on Rackspace Cloud Sites.

Why we need SSL Certificate for WordPress on Rackspace Cloud Sites ?

Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) is a message transportation protocol that gives warranty for ARP – Authenticated, Reliable and Private ; making a website more faithful to the public. SSL might have an positive effect on SERP as the website/domain is authenticated but keep in mind, for an old website, implementing SSL will create double alternative URLs making duplicate contents and probably Google will not count the backlinks to the non SSL urls. So there problems with SSL and needs a bit special configuration for WordPress. Otherwise I would install SSL right now without any thought. That small fee is nothing when compared to the probability of ‘getting better’.

Steps for Installing SSL Certificate for WordPress on Rackspace Cloud Sites

Installing SSL Certificate for a domain on Cloud Sites per se has no work. Its very simple click and do. Login to your Rackspace Cloud Control Panel, click to expand Cloud Sites list on the left hand side and click the domain name you need to install SSL certificate. Click the Security Tab and click Install SSL button :

There is an agreement between you as Rackspace Cloud Sites and Managed Services user and we can not disclose the agreement or pricing. You will get in the next step. Your cost will be around $11 per month.  Please talk with Rackspace Fanatical Live chat if you need help. The chain certificate allowed are (you can choose any) :

• StarField Intermediate
• Thawte Intermediate SGCCA
• VeriSign Intermediate SecureSite
• VeriSign Intermediate SecureSite Pro

Please take help of the Support team for this part. This has nothing to do with WordPress but the Domain.

Configuring SSL Certificate for WordPress on Rackspace Cloud Sites making it working

WordPress is not really made by default to Support SSL, so a bit modification is needed. Open wp-config.php file and add :

define('FORCE_SSL_ADMIN', true);
define('FORCE_SSL_LOGIN', true);

Where there is the famous comment “That’s all, stop editing! Happy blogging.” ends, wp-settings.php call begins. Save it.

The htaccess part of default WordPress htaccess must need to be updated :

RewriteCond %{THE_REQUEST} ^[A-Z]{3,9}\ /(.*)\ HTTP/ [NC]
RewriteCond %{HTTPS} !=on [NC]
RewriteRule ^/?(wp-admin/|wp-login\.php) https://thedomain.com%{REQUEST_URI}%{QUERY_STRING} [R=301,QSA,L]

The folder should be made properly redirected :

<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
RewriteEngine On 
RewriteRule !^wp-(admin|login|register)(.*) - [C]
RewriteRule !^/wp-(admin|includes)/(.*) - [C]
RewriteRule ^/(.*) http://example.com/$1 [QSA,L]
</IfModule>

You will face various peculiar problems, you must check all the urls which can be accessed via .php extension like -install.php, -upgrade.php, -login.php, -register.php etc with both http and https from all possible browsers to make sure :

• http redirects to https
• There is no 500 server error
• There is no infinite redirection loop

There is good plugin named WPSSL, which adds meta tag to force browser to load the https page. But make sure the htaccess fully right. WordPress HTTPS (SSL) is noteworthy.

Read the plugin named SSL Insecure Content Fixer ‘s page on WordPress for fixing issues.

Must read for using SSL Certificate for WordPress on Rackspace Cloud Sites

• Full Backup. No compromise. Start with a full backup with all, even the cache. Test it on another test site whether its working or not.
• Disable any kind of plugin. Better to uninstall them temporarily.
• Disable any minification, any backup plugin.
• Change your blog’s url to HTTPS version from Admin menu.

If you carefully follow this guide, you will successfully install SSL Certificate for WordPress on Rackspace Cloud Sites. We wrote with cautions, usually its not so pain on Rackspace as all (database, SFTP) are basically running on SSL except your domain !

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