How to buy an SSL certificate, is it free?

How to buy an SSL certificate?

What is a SSL certificate?

A SSL certificate is like a digital ID of an entity and it proves what we claim who we are. However, on Internet, only a SSL certificate signed by CA (certificate authority) is trustworthy.

https port

What is the number of https port? It's usually 443 if you are running a web service.

What can I do with a SSL certificate other than an ID?

This certificate can be imported into a mail server, a web server on a https port or other type of servers. Then, PKI and SSL certificates work together to establish encrypted connections between servers and clients.

Where can I get SSL certificates?

There are many SSL certificate dealers selling different brands of certificates and prices vary accordingly. I recommend you to buy Comodo Certificates from KSoftware for $20 a piece. It is a basic SSL certificate to fit in web server or mail server puroses.

Here are a few steps to guide your through the buying process: (this example demonstrates buying a certificate for a mail server)

1.      Browse to KSoftware purchase webpage http://www.ksoftware.net/ssl_certs.html

2.      Click on Buy icon next to Comodo PositiveSSL Certificates

3.      Obtain CSR (Certificate Signing Request) string of an unsigned SSL certificate. Copy and paste it to the space next to 1. Copy and paste your CSR into this box. (EVO Mail Server supports auto-generating unsigned SSL certificate and its CSR for your domain.)

4.      At 2. Select the server software used to generate the CSR, click on the pull-down list to the right and select Apache-ModSSL

5.      Leave 3. Select the hash algorithm… alone and go on to 4. Select the validity period for your Certificate. Do as asked.

6.      For Item 5, 6, and 7, it is up to you if you like to keep it or not. Click on Next>.

7.     On next page, select an email account, such as admin@yourdomain.com to which a domain control validation email will be delivered. Upon receiving this mail, a validation process will be performed by entering a validation code on Comodo’s website. Click Continue > to proceed.

8.      Complete Your Corporate Details, Your Contact Details and Choose Your Admin Contact’s Management Details. The last one allows you to log in Comodo for future support. Click Continue > to proceed.

9.      Click on I ACCEPT on Agreements page. Go on to finish billing information page and click on Make Payment to wrap up purchase.

10.  Finish Domain Control Verification process and log in the email box in Step 8 to fetch the certificate.

How to install SSL Certificate on mail server?

How to import SSL certificate into a paid or free mail server? (Here, we use EVO Mail Server for our
example)

1.      Once you retrieve the server certificate zip file, download and extract it to a temporary folder. There are two files:
      a.      yourdomain.com.crt
      b.      yourdomain.com.ca-bundle

2.      Open EVO Mail Server GUI and browse to Setting page and scroll down to 6. SSL(TLS) Certificate and Private Key Setting.

3.      On both SSL Certificate(X.509) and SSL Cert Chain(X.509), click Import respectively to the right and browse to the temp folder where you keep the server certificate files.

4.      While browsing, set file extension at lower-right to X.509 (*.*). For SSL Certificate(X.509), select yourdomain.com.crt; for SSL Cert Chain (X.509), select yourdomain.com.ca-bundle.

5.      Go to Status page, look for 2. Network setting status and you should see SSL Cert. & Key should be: passed, certificate loaded, CN value yourdomain.com verified