Name Cheap SSL: How To Activate and Install in Your Hosting

Lately, i had a problem with my web hosting and decided to migrate to a new one. My previous had SSL in its bundle which was active automatically. but my new hots required me to purchase a new SSL certificate which i decided to make the choice with Name cheap.

At the start it was a little bit complicated as some of the tutorials were to detailed for nothing IMHO.

To get your SSL running on your website is very easy with Nameacheap.

Buy SSL,Activate it and Upload into your servers.

What is SSL?

SSL stand for Secure socket Layer. An SSL certificate creates a safe connection between your website and your clients when they browse through pages,share their information or make purchase of goods and services.

Why do you need an SSL certificate

With the new development in web technology,SEO and security., having an SSL certficate is a must to website owners today. An SSl certificate has many uses to your site.

An SSl installed on you website can help in SEO,site speed,protection of your website against hackers,gives trust to your users and equally help your website to be displayed properly on some browser especially google chrome.


Buy , Activate and Install Your Name Cheap SSL Certificate

STEP1: SSL Purchase

Go to Name Cheap SSL Page and select the SSL of your choice . If you already have then you can skip this stage.

Note: If you were given the 1 year free SSL certificate for after purchasing a web hosting package from Namecheap, you dont need to go through all this.:

i. Type yourdomainname/cpanel and enter your user name and password

ii. In the first Column '' EXCLUSIVE FOR NAMECHEAP CUSTOMERS'' Click on ''Namecheap SSL'' and click on Install SSL. You website will be up and running securely over https.

  However, you want to use Namecheap SSL on another host or on Easy WP by namecheap,  then you can proceed to the following steps.  You can still decide to activate your name cheap SSL using the method shared in this tutrorial. The above Steps, represent a short cut for namecheap customers. Lets proceed to the Next Step

Step TWO: Confirming Purchase

Login into your namecheap account and click on Product List. You will see a list of SSl certificates displayed.

This is to confirm that your purchase was successful.

Step3. Generating CSR code

After confirming that your SSL is in  your account, the next thing will be to generate a CSR code which will be used in activating your SSL.

To do this, Go to decoder.link/csr_generator
&  enter the required details which include: domain name, city,region or state,organization, and Email. other options are optional. if you have them then you can provide.

 Ensure that everything is okay and click on Generate and move to step 4.

Sample CSR generated on decorder.link

                 Make sure the Tab is still open if you are making use of this tutorial

STEP4:   Saving Useful Information

After clicking on generate, your CSR code will be displayed together with  the private key and certificate.
Copy the private key and save on on a a notepad file. This is very important as you will need it later. If you fail to do this then you will get fucked up.
You can create another  notepad documents for the certificate.This is not very necessary as you will get the certificate and other files once it is activated.

 
STEP5: Create .key file and save

Copy the private key you had saved earlier , Open this link  https://decoder.link/rsa_converter. Paste the key there and click on Convert. Copy the converted RSA key and paste it on a new notepad document.

Click save AS, then  make the file name to end with .key , select  ''All files'' as file type  and Encoding as  ''Unicode''  as indicated in the screen shot below

Save this somewhere on your computer safe and sound.

                                       Step6: Activating the SSL

I. Copy the CSR code generated in step 3 
II. Return to your namecheap account, product list ,Scroll down to the SSL and click on ''Activate''.

III. Paste the CSR code your copied  On the space provided(Enter CSR) and click Next. in the next page you select.

IV. Choose between the servers. In most cases, option tow is what is being used ''Any Other Server''  Cpanel and click on Next. Hosting like hostgator,blue host,siteground ,and others make use of cpanel. If you have any doubts  you can ask your web hosting company.

V.Confirm the domain ownership by choosing a suitable validation method.The options available are email,HTTP-based and DNS base. I always use the DNS based option. But you are free to use the other options.

VI. In the next step, enter the email  where the certificate will be sent to once it is activated and submit.  You will need to wait for the certificate to be activated. You can always check the status on the Product list section.
                                     Step 7 : Installation of NameCheap SSL
Once the request for activating the SSL is approved, the status will be ''Active '' in your account . You will need to download the certificate sent to you by email  from sender  '' Comodo Security Services'' and install it on the server hosting the domain.

  Before installing, Check if the private key you have matches with the certificate issued using this link https://decoder.link/matcher .

Paste the Private key and corresponding certificate and click on Match to verify. You can open the certificate file using notepad.

After installation, check if the certificate is okay using this link https://decoder.link/ .
 To make this post short, i have created a separate post for the Installation. Leave comment if you have and proceed to the next part of the post.
                                           How to Install Namecheap SSL Certificate