AutoSSL in V. 58

Hello,

cPanel (powered by Comodo) is the AutoSSL provider that's shipped with cPanel 58. The free offering is limited to DV certificates (This link from Comodo explains how a DV certificate works). The "AutoSSL" feature allows you to let users automatically purchase and install SSL certificates from your chosen provider. The following document offers some more information on how this works:

Market Provider Manager - Documentation - cPanel Documentation

Support for "Let's Encrypt" is planned for the future as part of a separate plugin. The cPanel 58 release notes go into detail about this feature:

58 Release Notes - Documentation - cPanel Documentation

The following blog posts offer some more details about the new SSL offerings:

The cPanel Market Provider, and free hostname SSLs | cPanel Blog

Let us know if you have any questions.

Thanks!

 

Hello,

The ability to issue free DV certificates from Comodo was a project started before support for "Let's Encrypt" was planned. You can monitor the progress on the planned "Let's Encrypt" plugin at:

Provide Support for Let's Encrypt Automated Certificate Management/SSL

The free cPanel (powered by Comodo) and the free "Let's Encrypt" certificates both utilize domain validation (DV).

Thank you.

 

Yes, with the exception of proxy subdomains or wildcard domains. The following document includes additional information about this feature you may find helpful:

Manage AutoSSL - Documentation - cPanel Documentation

Thanks!

 

It's difficult to predict how the widespread availability of free DV certificates could affect those specific product offerings. For anyone interested, the comments section of the following feature request includes additional discussion from cPanel users about how free DV certificates might affect the SSL certificate industry as a whole :

Provide Support for Let's Encrypt Automated Certificate Management/SSL

Thank you.

 

Quite well on this end. I did have a couple domains now dead that were still in the system I had to clean up. For example one was an Parked domain (Alias) that no longer exists. Each night the system checks, finds it and spits out this message in the "All Users" log in Logs area:

Code:

3:51:07 AM Checking websites for “cPusernme” …
3:51:07 AM The website, example.com, owned by “cPusernme” has a valid SSL certificate, but additional SSL coverage may be possible for the domains “example.info” and “www.example.info”. Attempting replacement …
3:51:07 AM WARN The domain “example.info” has failed domain control validation (“example.info” does not resolve to any IPv4 addresses on the internet.). at bin/autossl_check.pl line 361.
3:51:07 AM WARN The domain “www.example.info” has failed domain control validation (“www.example.info” does not resolve to any IPv4 addresses on the internet.). at bin/autossl_check.pl line 361.
3:51:07 AM The system has completed the AutoSSL check for “cPusernme”. 

I have 2 sub domain issues and one Addon domain issue:

Code:

3:51:08 AM Checking websites for “cPusernme” …
3:51:09 AM The website, site.example.net, owned by “cPusernme” has a valid SSL certificate, but additional SSL coverage may be possible for the domains “www.site.example.net”. Attempting replacement …
3:51:09 AM WARN The domain “www.site.example.net” has failed domain control validation (“www.site.example.net” does not resolve to any IPv4 addresses on the internet.). at bin/autossl_check.pl line 361.
3:51:09 AM The website, blog.example.net, owned by “cPusernme” has a valid SSL certificate, but additional SSL coverage may be possible for the domains “www.blog.example.net”. Attempting replacement …
3:51:09 AM WARN The domain “www.blog.example.net” has failed domain control validation (“www.blog.example.net” does not resolve to any IPv4 addresses on the internet.). at bin/autossl_check.pl line 361.
3:51:09 AM The website, cms.example.net, owned by “cPusernme” has a valid SSL certificate, but additional SSL coverage may be possible for the domains “www.cms.example.net”. Attempting replacement …
3:51:09 AM WARN The domain “www.cms.example.net” has failed domain control validation (“www.cms.example.net” does not resolve to any IPv4 addresses on the internet.). at bin/autossl_check.pl line 361.
3:51:09 AM The system has completed the AutoSSL check for “cPusernme”.

And 2 sub domains that longer exists, but the redirect for them did.

Overall I found the process to be quite easy. I only did a few at a time, as the magic doesn't happen right away of course, it takes a few minutes to retrieve and setup the cert(s) for each. I also manually added rules to several of the site's htaccess' to force www as well.

Images on a sites homepage linked to from somewhere else, will get you a "Connection is not secure" message.

I recommend this new feature.

If https makes google happy and your users can't afford their own SSL proper, this is a pretty darn good stand in.

 

Those guys in cPanel Technical Support can fix anything.


GL!