So after a bit of back-and-forth with Jumpline support (which was as supportive as hoped if not quite as responsive as hoped), I now have SSL certificates on my website (click here to see). This is cool, but the solution was not as obvious as hoped.
Apparently, the VDS manager (the software that manages my virtual domain) has some, well, quirks about how it expects things to behave. In particular, it requires that the certificate be actually named "server.crt" rather than whatever I defined in the httpd.conf file. Thanks to Andrew and Geoff at Jumpline, who went in and actually modified my server config to make this work, things seem to be working correctly now. It took 2 days of their futzing around to actually make it work, but it does seem to be working.
The other main problem is that I can't use multiple certificates as I'd hoped to do. I could do a wildcard certificate but that costs in the $400/yr price range - something I can't swing financially. So I wasted $12.99, which is sad but at least not an expensive object lesson. Still disappointing.
Now, though, I can begin to work again on OttoJotts for Facebook. I'll have to see how well it goes. I'm putting in a breakpoint, though - if I don't make progress for more than a day that I actually work on things, I'm going to punt and work on the web version instead.
Let's see what the next several days holds in store for OttoJotts...
Showing posts with label ssl. Show all posts
Showing posts with label ssl. Show all posts
Thursday, March 22, 2012
Tuesday, March 20, 2012
SSL certificates and my web host provider
The past few days have been proven quite difficult - unexpectedly and disappointingly so. Here's the general gist of what's been happening.
I decided that rather than write a full front-end web interface for OttoJotts that I would be sneaky and do it for Facebook, creating a back-end for beta testing. This would give me a leg up on the FB version of the game and would still let me write most of the code needed for things without doing web development directly (I would be able to leverage some of my other efforts to help). I kept getting a failure from FB, though, and found out that it was likely based on secure browsing and a lack of SSL support from my game.
So I went online, found a cheap solution from NetworkSolutions ($12.99/yr for an SSL certificate - that's a good deal) and bought one for my FB subdomain. Installing it has been quite the exercise in frustration, though. For some reason, adding OpenSSL to the Apache service is simple. I just had to click on something, fill out a form, and bam! Installed. The certificates, though, are a different beast.
First, none of the documentation I've found match my configuration. I've been searching for, literally, days trying to find out what arcane incantation I'm missing to make this thing work. There are two separate configuration files - httpd.conf and ssl.conf. In different directories. Which one do I edit? What changes do I need to make to them? The information online seems scattered and confused - and doesn't match the configuration I have.
I've submitted a ticket with my hosting company to enlist their help, but some of the documentation now has me concerned that I won't be able to add a separate SSL certificate for my main site (the WWW one) and one for my subdomain (the one I'm using for the FB game) because of how OpenSSL is configured. Overall what I would have expected to be something that should be bog simple (because of the need for secure connections in an increasingly-connected world) has turned out to be the epitome of legacy manual entry. The only thing that would make it worse if I had to submit it on Hollerith (punch) cards! As it is, it's fortunate that I know vi as well as I do and can navigate my way around a Linux system.
I will update as things progress but for now I can just say that someone (not me) needs to figure out how to make this a lot simpler than it currently is.
I decided that rather than write a full front-end web interface for OttoJotts that I would be sneaky and do it for Facebook, creating a back-end for beta testing. This would give me a leg up on the FB version of the game and would still let me write most of the code needed for things without doing web development directly (I would be able to leverage some of my other efforts to help). I kept getting a failure from FB, though, and found out that it was likely based on secure browsing and a lack of SSL support from my game.
So I went online, found a cheap solution from NetworkSolutions ($12.99/yr for an SSL certificate - that's a good deal) and bought one for my FB subdomain. Installing it has been quite the exercise in frustration, though. For some reason, adding OpenSSL to the Apache service is simple. I just had to click on something, fill out a form, and bam! Installed. The certificates, though, are a different beast.
First, none of the documentation I've found match my configuration. I've been searching for, literally, days trying to find out what arcane incantation I'm missing to make this thing work. There are two separate configuration files - httpd.conf and ssl.conf. In different directories. Which one do I edit? What changes do I need to make to them? The information online seems scattered and confused - and doesn't match the configuration I have.
I've submitted a ticket with my hosting company to enlist their help, but some of the documentation now has me concerned that I won't be able to add a separate SSL certificate for my main site (the WWW one) and one for my subdomain (the one I'm using for the FB game) because of how OpenSSL is configured. Overall what I would have expected to be something that should be bog simple (because of the need for secure connections in an increasingly-connected world) has turned out to be the epitome of legacy manual entry. The only thing that would make it worse if I had to submit it on Hollerith (punch) cards! As it is, it's fortunate that I know vi as well as I do and can navigate my way around a Linux system.
I will update as things progress but for now I can just say that someone (not me) needs to figure out how to make this a lot simpler than it currently is.
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