Installing Intermediate CA with cPanel

When I saw that the VeriSign EV SSL / TLS certificates required an intermediate CA to be installed, I was worried it was going to be a long and painful process. Well, turns out it is super easy to install.

It seems that some of the modern browsers have no problem when the intermediate CA is not installed, but older ones, on the other hand, don't like it. So, here is how you make your cert work on most browsers.

First, copy the appropriate intermediate CA root bundle from VeriSign. I had a standard EV SSL, so I used the first cert on this page.

Now, log in to cPanel and click on "SSL/TLS Manager" > "Activate SSL on Your Web Site (HTTPS)". Use the drop-down box to select your domain and the domain's certificate should show up (the one you installed at an earlier time, or google "install SSL certificate with cPanel"). Then, you'll see an extra text box at the bottom called "Ca Bundle (CABUNDLE)." Just paste the intermediate CA there and click "Install." Yep, it's that easy.

Wildcard SSL on WHM and cPanel

I had the task of implementing a wildcard SSL for a client the other day. I search the web for info on doing this with WHM and cPanel and got a host of wild answers that made it sound difficult to impossible. When I got done, I was surprised by how easy it was. Here is what I did..

By the way, just as a disclaimer, this is from memory. If you have any feedback, let me know in the comments.

1. Create an account for *.example.com (you must have a dedicated IP for the account for example.com)
   
2. Generate private keys (Log into cPanel > SSL/TLS Manager > Private Keys (KEY)) for the domain *.example.com
   
3. Generate a signing request (cPanel > SSL/TLS Manager > Certificate Signing Requests (CSR)) for the domain *.example.com
   
4. Go to your favorite certificate issuer (RapidSSL, for instance) and get your certificate using the CSR you just created
   
5. Upload your new certificate from your issuer (cPanel > SSL/TLS Manager > Certificates (CRT)) by pasting it in the box
   
6. Install & enable the new certificate (cPanel > SSL/TLS Manager > Activate SSL on Your Web Site (HTTPS)) for example.com (it is missing the * but this is ok)
   
7. Everything should be working now, so try it by going to https://example.com/
   
8. Create a * sub-domain so that all sub-domains will work (cPanel > Subdomains) directing them to the document root of public_html
   
9. Create a folder in public_html for each sub-domain you want to use
   
10. Add these lines to your .htaccess file to rewrite the URL:
    
    # This line should only be in the file once, at the top
    RewriteEngine On
    
    RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^mysubdomain\.example\.com$
    RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !^/mysubdomain/
    RewriteRule ^(.*) mysubdomain/$1 [L]
    
    

And that should be it. Like I said, I am doing this from memory. But, this is the general outline to getting a wildcard SSL working on cPanel. It does work and is not that hard to get going, contrary to many other posts. If I missed something or did a step wrong, please let me know so I can update this post.

Peace!