The hostname in the Certificate is invalid or does not match

[mgm]

Not being one to give up easily and whilst I'm aware that there are widely reported problems on this community regarding SSL and Fasthosts, I went ahead and tried to make the SSL on customer login and checkout pages option work. I requested SSL folders in Fasthost Control Panel and it added an SSL folder at https://secure9.prositehosting.co.uk/your-files. Fasthost returned a new IP address for it which is slightly different to my website IP address but the your-files folder is correctly located in htdocs alongside my acatalog and cgi-bin folders.

I'm using Fasthost's Business Premium hosting on a Linux server and Actinic Business v10. I have managed to set everything up so that there are effectively two CGI-BIN folders on my website, one for normal unsecure files and the other for SSL files (the 'your-files' folder). The Actinic software has correctly loaded the normal and SSL Perl files into the correct folders on my website and the name of the SSL folder I setup in htdocs matches the Fasthost SSL folder name. I can go into Fasthost's File Manager and see the relevant Perl files in the correct folders. So everything seems to be in the right place. I have also provisionally selected SagePay as my PSP although I don't yet have an account with them.

When I tested network settings Actinic reported a SSL certificate error, however, I went ahead and published my webstore to my website anyway and it loaded without any errors. When I go to my website in Internet Explorer and try and do a test purchase, I can successfully go into the shopping cart and checkout but it does not immediately change the web address to https:. However, my McAfee site advisor then steps in and reports a SSL certificate problem and if I ignore it and go ahaead at risk, my https page comes up in IE showing the Perl script, so it obviously gets there but there's a certificate validation problem.

The error message I receive when running the test network settings, on the testing CGI script settings test is: "There is a problem with the SSL certificate:- The host name in the certificate is invalid or does not match."

The obvious next question seems to be, where is the hostname on the certificate located and where and to what does it try and match it?

It seems to be very close to working properly but I can't find out what is causing the SSL certificate error message above. Does anyone have any suggestions as to what might be causing this?

[mgm]

I don't know if this is a further clue but the McAfee Site Advisor error message I refered to above says:

"There is a problem with this website's security certificate. The security certificate presented by this website was issued for a different website's address."

Might this indicate a problem due to the difference in the IP address Fasthost issued me for my FTP website and the slightly different IP address for my SSL folder?

[pinbrook]

I requested SSL folders in Fasthost Control Panel and it added an SSL folder at https://secure9.prositehosting.co.uk/your-files. Fasthost returned a new IP address for it which is slightly different to my website IP address

Most shared hosting will allocate you a shared IP - this is the first one FH gave you however if you have an SSL cert you are then given a dedicated IP - the 2nd IP you were given.

You should now upload your site to the dedicated IP and not try to swap from one IP to another.

[mgm]

Thanks Pinbrook. I understand what you are saying and it makes sense. So the meaning of the error message I received is really saying you were given a SSL certificate for an SSL folder located at https://secure9.prositehosting.co.uk/your-files with a new IP address of nn.nnn.nnn.nnn but you're trying to access your website SSL pages with the original IP address with a certificate that was provided for the second IP address, and that's not valid.

However, doesn't that mean that all my website pages will be in SSL, rather than just the customer login and checkout pages? If that's the case won't my whole webstite run very slowly? I really only want the customer login and checkout pages in SSL not the whole website, in order to keep my website running at a good speed.

[mgm]

Now I think I understand why setting up SSL folders isn't going to work and I'm recording it here in case it's of use to others. I don't think it's the fault of either Fasthosts or Actinic, it's a combination of both.

As far as I can see, when you ask Fasthosts to add a secure SSL folder in Control Panel, it provides a secure SSL folder for you on a different server with a different IP address. However, it then asks you to create a folder in your original unsecure server with the same name as the one on the secure server. You add this SSL folder in your htdocs folder next to acatalog and cgi-bin. However, when you access that SSL folder in File Manager by clicking on it in the htdocs folder you are being redirected to the secure server. So that means your acatalog & cgi-bin unsecure folders/files are on the unsecure server and the SSL folder/files on the secure server.

When you set up SSL folders for customer login and checkout pages in Actinc there are two tabs in network settings for standard and SSL settings, so that you can provide a path for your Actinic secure SSL Perl files to the secure server and another path to your unsecure server for your acatalog and cgi-bin files.

However, when you try and test the network settings, an SSL Thwarte certificate is presented which has the new secure SSL server IP address on it but Actinic compares this with the original unsecure server IP address and flags up an error because they are different. The same thing happnes when you try and upload the website and test it. My McAfee Site Advisor also recognises a clash between the two different IP addresses and flags up an error.

So I think when other users of this forum say the only way you can get Actinic SSL folders to work on Fastshosts is to place the whole website in the SSL folders, they mean that you have to place your acatalog files, your cgi-bin files and your secure SSL files all in the same secure SSL folder on the secure server, rather than being split between the unsecure and secure servers. I see that there is an option to set up http and SSL foldwers on different servers in the Actinic business settings but when I tried this it came back with an invalid operation type of error.

I'd be interested to know how secure SSL customer login and checkout pages works when using Actinic on a different web host and whether anyone else ever manages to get Actinic SSL working on Fasthosts. But for the moment I think I've spent far too long trying to make this work and I need to stop and just rely on the secure PSP to provide my customers with the security they can want and can trust.

Maybe Actinc and Fasthosts can get their heads together on this one and try and find a solution.