Purchase a ssl cert for a domain without a webserver

user182945

4/21/24, 12:24 PM

My company has a legacy web application where there is a link to help documents. The link is https://help.example.com. The Apache server for the domain https://www.example.com decommissioned so only the domain name exists in DNS which is now redirected to https://www.xyzxyz.com which doesn't have help documents.

The lead developer told the system administrator that he needs to create a CNAME.

So, a CNAME called help.example.com was created that now points to help.xyzxyz.com.

When I go to https://help.example.com on a browser, I get an SSL error ERR_SSL_PROTOCOL_ERROR

I'm assuming I have to purchase a SSL cert for the URL help.example.com.

But since https://www.example.com is only an IP that redirects and it doens't have a apache server. How am I going to resolve this. Because I don't have a apache server for www.example.com where I can install the ssl cert.

0 + 2

domain-name-system

web-hosting

web-server

apache-2.4

larsks

4/21/24, 12:57 PM

`https://www.example.com` **does** have a server; it's the same one that's serving `help.xyzxyz.com`. There are a variety of ways to have that server host separate certificates for the two domains. See e.g. [this article](https://www.digicert.com/kb/ssl-support/apache-multiple-ssl-certificates-using-sni.htm) for one possible solution.

Patrick Mevzek

4/21/24, 6:17 PM

Any CA worth its salt allows DV through DNS records only aka `dns-01` validation methods, which as such doesn't need any running webserver anywhere.

Elon Musk

I sit in a Tesla and translated this thread with Ai:

EN: Purchase a ssl cert for a domain without a webserver

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