Order or set up an SSL certificate

Open the desired domain under "Websites & Domains" and click on "SSL/TSL certificates" under "Security".

Under "No certificate installed" you will then find the option to install a free basic certificate from Let's Encrypt. To do this, click on "Install".

You can have a wildcard certificate issued for domains that are registered through us or for virtual domains for which our name servers have been deposited.

After clicking on "Use for free", it may take a few seconds until the next step is displayed.

Wait until the message at the top right has disappeared, the system needs this time to create the necessary DNS entries before you start the validation by clicking on "Reload".

For virtual domains that only point to our server via A-Record, i.e. our server only issues the website for name-der-domain.info and www.name-der-domain.info, you should only order these two variants. This means that the certificate is issued fully automatically and the renewal also works automatically without your intervention.

When ordering a wildcard certificate, the name server entries described below must be added to the domain provider.

1. Edit the DNS settings of your domain.
2. Click on the "Info" button
3. Here, under "Let's Encrypt", you will find the DNS entries that you need to create.

Only when these entries are visible in a DNS query can you continue by clicking on "Reload".

You can check the visibility of the entries, for example, at www.dnswatch.info/dns/dnslookup

If you receive an error message, your domain provider is still missing the A records in your domain's DNS. Please check there whether the entries for A and AAAA have been set correctly for both the domain without and with www. Alternatively, the name servers need a little more time to synchronize worldwide.

So that you can install the SSL certificate in the customer menu (Plesk) after it has been issued, you must save the private key as a .key file.

You will find an item "SSL certificates" directly after the order under "Orders". Click on it and call up the SSL certificate. Copy the text under "Private Key" and save it as a file (DOMAINNAME.key) using a Unix-capable text editor (e.g. not TextEdit from Apple).

Click on "Order" in your order management and then on "SSL certificates".

In the first step of the order process, you select whether the certificate should only be valid for the domain (e.g. name-der-domain.info) or also for all subdomains (name-der-domain.info and e.g. dev.name-der-domain.info) (Wildcard DomainSSL).

Please note that a wildcard certificate only covers 3rd-level domains such as dev.name-der-domain.info, but not other levels such as www.dev.name-der-domain.info.

In the second step, we recommend that you select the option "[Recommended] Automatic CSR generation" if you do not have your own CSR or do not know what a CSR is.

Further input fields will then appear at the top, which you must all fill in. Please note that no umlauts (ä => ae) or special characters (ß => ss) are allowed.

Important: If you would like to order a wildcard DomainSSL, you must enter the domain name with a *: *.DOMAINNAME.TLD

In the fourth step, you will be given another overview and the option of selecting the email address to which the verification of domain ownership should be sent. Please make sure that one of the e-mail addresses has been created and that you can retrieve it.

Open the desired domain under "Websites & Domains" and click on "SSL/TSL certificates" under "Security".

Under "No certificate installed" you will then find the option to install an existing certificate under "Download or remove existing certificates". To do this, click on "Manage".

Call up the certificate management for the domain. To do this, click on "Advanced settings".

The next steps are the same in both cases.

Next, click on "+ Add SSL/TLS certificate".

Give your SSL certificate a name so that you can recognize it later when it is assigned to the domain. In this example, "*.name-der.domain.de - SSL Wildcard" has been entered in the field.

You can ignore everything under Settings. These are used to generate a CSR file.

In the "Upload certificate files" section, select the three files on your computer. Then click on "Upload certificate" directly below.

Do not click on "Upload certificate" under the "Upload certificate as text" section. If you have uploaded files, you do not need to make any entries under "Upload certificate as text", as these are not mandatory fields.

For the domain, call up the "Hosting settings" via the menu or the icon at the top right.

Under "Certificate", you then select the installed SSL certificate.

In our example, we had saved the certificate with the name "*.name-der.domain.de - Domain SSL Wildcard". This would then appear here in the selection field.