This guide shows you how to install a Let's Encrypt SSL and successfully enable https on your Cloud hosted site.

• Installing a Let’s Encrypt Certificate

• Checking your https:// connection

• Forcing https://

Installing a Let's Encrypt Certificate#

Note: Let’s Encrypt SSLs can be installed on an unlimited number of Cloud websites. Certificates will automatically renew every 90 days unless circumstances change, provided the renewal is granted by Let's Encrypt. Let's Encrypt Certificates will not work on WordPress Multisites (Wildcard platform) 

1. Login to your Cloud control panel

2. From the top carousel select the website you would like to install a Let’s Encrypt SSL Certificate on

3. Select the ‘Let’s Encrypt’ icon located under the Advanced Management tools section

4. Make sure you have deleted the Aliases for the website preview URL (Domain Aliases » Delete all that have .gridhosted.co.uk at the end)

5. Click ‘Check My Domains’ » click “Check My Domains” » You will then get a table with all of the domains that would get a certificate. (Aliases included). If your sites  are listed as OK » “Request Certificates”

Note: If you receive a “Not OK” red error please try the following solutions before reattempting installation:

• A redirect to https:// already exists - temporarily remove it.

• A plugin is preventing installation. Locate your ‘Plugins’ folder in  public_html/wp-content/ and rename it. Don’t forget to rename it “plugins” once your Let’s Encrypt SSL is activated.

• The A record of your website or an alias is not pointing to the correct IP. Update it to the correct Web IP which you’ll find in the right hand side panel of your Cloud control panel.

• You are using CloudFlare. Deactivate the proxy.

1. That's it, your Let's Encrypt Certificate is now installed

2. You would need to wait for the DNS cache to clear out before attempting to force https:// connection

Checking your https:// connection#

1. Visit your website. Replace the http:// that prefixes your domain with https://, click enter.  A green padlock should now appear next to your address in the browser URL bar.

If you see a different coloured padlock, triangle or variation of both, your Let’s Encrypt Certificate is installed and working but there is an issue on your site with mixed content. This means that there is content on your website which is not being delivered to users securely.

This insecure content is holding your site back from being marked as fully secure by browsers. To achieve full https:// you need to pinpoint and resolve the issues.

1. Visit https://www.whynopadlock.com/

2. Enter your site in the secure URL field and click ‘Check’. Your domain report will appear covering:

• Insecure calls to images, css, and javascript.

• Images called insecurely from linked css and js files.

• Expired cert, invalid or missing intermediate certificate (including 3rd party SSL certs.)

• SHA-1 algorithm test, POODLE test, insecure form calls for Chrome.

More often than not, the reason behind that is insecure image address.

Insecure URL example:

http://www.exampledomain.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/photo-1434064511983-18c6dae20ed5.jpg

WordPress sites:

To ensure all images are prefixed with https:// you need to run a search and replace in your database. To achieve this we recommend using the following service: https://interconnectit.com/products/search-and-replace-for-wordpress-databases/

Custom built sites:

To ensure all images are prefixed with https:// we recommending you get in touch with your webmaster/ developer.

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Forcing https#

Now you have installed a Let's Encrypt Certificate you now need to force the website to load from https:// (secure connection). 

To force https:// for  WordPress sites:

1. Set your WordPress site URL to https. You can do this by going to ‘Settings’ » ‘General’. Here you can update your WordPress and site URL address fields with the prefixed https://

2. To ensure pages always load from https:// install the WP Force https plugin

To force https:// for all other Linux sites;

1. Click “File manager” » public_html. Then right click on the .htaccess file and select “edit text file'

2. Add the following code to the top of your .htaccess file:                              

RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTPS} off
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ https://exampledomain.com/$1 [R=301,L]

1. Replace https://exampledomain.com/$1 with your domain name

2. To finish click “Ok”