Free SSL certificate for PrestaShop

Today i want to show you how you can get own SSL certificate for free. The most important thing is fact that your certificate will be accepted by all browsers!  It's not self signed certificate, but certificate signed by StartCom . StartCom is a company that sells all kind of SSL certificates. They offer free single-domain certificates. They are trusted by all available browsers! Our free certificate will be also insured  for the amount of 10 000 usd!. Certificate that you will generate will secure your domain and domain with www prefix  (for example: mypresta.eu and www.mypresta.eu).

Generation procedure of our certificate is not so complicated. But i will describe step by step how to do that. Not everyone is tech savvy so i think that it will be useful for each of you, not matter if you're IT specialist, or if you aren't. Okay, so - let's go :)

Free certificate generation process

Account creation

this step is necessary because we need an access to "customer account" on StartCom provider website. So please open StartCom authentication website .

1. Now press "Sign Up" button,  If you see there message like:

   Over Capacity
   We are currently receiving more requests than we can handle. Please try it later again.
   We apologize for the temporary inconvenience and thank you for your understanding.

    

2. It means, unfortunately - that you have to wait some time (several minutes). Because page is overloaded and they can't hadle your request at tje moment. Keep calm, and be patient please :-)

3. If you see register form, please fill it out with your valid datas! Fake credentials will be rejected.
4. Okay, so now your request must be validated by StartCom team, anyway - you will receive a shortcode immediately, please put it to field that you see on screen where the form appeared before.
5. You will see message with certificate authorisation request. Accept it! This website is different than other websites, there is no log in form etc. You will be logged with certificate that you will accept, always! :)
   
6. okay - your account is ready :) now it's time to generate SSL certificate

Generate own certificate

Okay, so, you've got own account and you can generate own SSL certificate now, follow steps that i describe below carefully.

1. In your control panel select tab named "Validations Wizard" (see picture)
2. From selectbox select option: "Domain Name Validation" and hit continue
3. In field that you will see type your domain name (without www!)
4. now it's time to select mailbox, where certificate information will be send. It's important! you must have a mail account with name: postmaster / hostmaster / webmaster) for exmaple postmaster@mypresta.eu, hostmaster@mypresta.eu, webmaster@mypresta,eu - this is the only one way to validate your domain, unfortunately. so if you haven't got any email that i mentioned - you have to create mailbox with login i mentioned.
5. You will receive a special code - it will be send to email you will select, type it (code that you will receive) in field that you see.
6. Now go to "certificates wizard" section
7. From select box select "Web server SSL/TLS certificate"
8. It's time to type certificate private key password now, use at least 10 chars (numbers, chars) (see picture)
9. Select options as i show on image above and generate own key. copy it and in notepad save it as ssl.key
10. Select one of your domain
11. Now you can type subdomain to secure, you can use "www" or any other subdomain you want
12. In the next step save certificate in notepad with name ssl.cert and also save "intermediate CA" certificate
13. Go to section "Tool Box" and select tool named "Decrypt Private Key"
14. To first text field paste private key that you saved before (ssl.key), to second field enter password you defined in step 8
15. You will see decrypted private key, save it somewhere, to remember how it looks like :-)

That's all! You've got own SSL certficiate and it's trusted in all available browsers! Now it's time to install it.

Certificate installation

1. So, in this step you should have at least:
2. - private key (ssl.key from 9 step)
3. - decrypted private key (and decrypted key from 15 step)
4. - certificate (ssl.cert - from 12 step)
5. - intermediate CA certificate (from 12 step)

Certificate installation is quite different depending on host, host settings etc. If you have own dedicated server, or vps you can find instructions on startCom FAQ section. If you are on shared hosting - check your hosting account control panel for example cPanel or ask your hoster about installation of own certificate.

if you want to hire us to install this ssl certificate on your vps / dedicated server - feel free to contact with us