Are you still running your website on unencrypted HTTP? With the proposed deprecation of the unsecure HTTP by Firefox and Google both, it’s just a matter of time that your HTTP website will be affected. So how does this affect you? Well, any website that does not have a SSL Certificate will automatically show a warning to all the user. This also affects your SEO and Google Page Rank. In earlier days, it was a little expensive to buy a SSL Certificate as you were already paying for the hosting and domain name. That problem is gone! Now with just Dreamhost Web Hosting and Let’s Encrypt, it is possible to add a free SSL Certificate.
First Steps
Step 1: Login to your Dreamhost Web Hosting Panel. If you don’t have a hosting account at Dreamhost, I would recommend you to buy it.
Step 2: Click on Domains – Manage Domains in the left sidebar of the Web Hosting Control Panel. You should see the list of domains that you own.
Step 3: Find your domain on which you want to set up SSL.
Add a free SSL Certificate using Let’s Encrypt in Dreamhost
Step 4: Click on https off and you will be redirected to the Secure Hosting Page of your Control Panel. This page shows the active SSL certificates. Don’t be surprised if you don’t see any domains.
Step 5: Now, Scroll down to the Add a New SSL Certificate section. There are various ways to add a SSL Certificate. You can either use the paid option by Comodo or self sign SSL. Since this tutorial is about Let’s Encrypt, we will use the third option. Click on Add for Let’s Encrypt.
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Configure your Let’s Encrypt settings.
Step 6: The next steps are really simple. Choose your domain name for which you want to add the free SSL Certificate. You can add a Unique IP to your installation but it’s not required. Agree to the terms and conditions which I know you will never read and click on Add Now.
Step 7: If all goes well, you should be able to see a success message from Dreamhost. The message also states that it adds a self signed SSL till the moment Let’s Encrypt is ready to go. It might take a while to activate your free SSL Certificate.
Step 8: Once done, you should be able to see the https on and Certificate active message in your domain list.
Your website is finally ready to be accessed on https but you still have to set up some other things like redirecting http to https and solving mixed content issues. Let us know if you have any problems while following this guide and we will get back to you as soon as possible.
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