SSL questions???

[Spark]

Sorry - me again. I have read some of the other postings on SSL's and getting them to work and thought I'd done o.k. Managed to configure the network settings and refresh my site (relief!!) (I'm with 1&1). Then I hit the error 404 on checkout. Know I must have done something wrong but what??

Didn't really understand (could be the time of night and lack of current brain power) the replies on how to fix it. Tried a web / configure then refreshed the site again but have to admit that I didn't know which settings I should be checking so could easily have missed a problem. For now, I've disabled the SSL so that the site at least works.

What should I be looking for - where should I start?

Also, is it better to secure the whole site or just the checkout pages where customers put in their address details etc.? I'd only done the checkout pages so does that mean that visitors to the site will get a message telling them that I'm not secure when they enter?

Another question (sorry to ask so many): If you've got an SSL certificate on your whole site, does it stop webstats packages from working? (Other postings have suggested that site SSLs makes the site run slowly.)

Thanks.

[I-CC]

Assuming that you have an SSL cert assigned to your domain name explicitly, and you are not using a shared SSL service with your host, then if your domain is normally http://www.mydomain.com/ then under SSL you should be able to access your site under https://www.yourdomain.com/ (i.e. the extra s in the http bit).

Check that you have this if SSL is explicit to your domain to start with.

If it is shared, i.e. the SSL does not show up without operation errors saying the cert does not match the domain, then you would need to ascertain the paths for your files under the shared and whether they need to be uploaded to separate folders, or whether it will operate under the same folders.

[I-CC]

Oooooooooooops, sorry.

stats are normally generated by the access log files, which invariably on apache systems is controlled by the vhost file higher up in the servers config.

For the logs to include the SSL called pages, that SSL enabled vhost file must have the references to append to the appropriate log file, as it will do for the non SSL page hits, which generally would be done by default, but something you will need to speak to your host about.

Running your site 100% under SSL is not needed and it can slow your site down for normal page views, as the data instead of being passed over 'as is', will need to be encrypted before it can pass, which although not the end of the world, will again depend on the server and load being experienced by the server, i.e. if you have 50 sites on that shared server all just using SSL for the checkout say, then it might fly along no problems, but if they all switched to SSL for the whole site, then a higher load would be experienced by that server as it has to do more processing for every single page displayed as it has to parse it through the SSL channels.

To be honest, SSL on login and checkout is more than enough and no real need to encrypt pages where the content is freely available and no sensitive information is being input into those pages, apart from Qty and maybe dates/unique input of info for a product to be purchase in the case of "what message would you like to be sent with your flowers" - as an example

[pinbrook]

Again assuming you have your own SSL cert, as long as your network settings are correct, all you should need to do is turn on SSL in checkout only and Actinic automatically does the rest of the settings for you

[Spark]

Thank you both - I'll have another try today and I'll stick to just using the SSL in the checkout pages. I'll need to double check whether mine is a shared certificate first I think - that might have been the problem.

There are just so many bits and pieces to figure out - I keep getting really sidetracked. With so many possibilities and so little knowledge about how to achieve them I think I'm going to need to get a little bit more realistic about how quickly I can get the site as I'd like it. I need to concentrate more on the bits that make it functional - only trouble is, again - with limited knowledge it's all trial and error and WOW!! there are so many errors in my case. The bits that I'm getting to know best are the bits that keep going wrong.

Thanks again.