Do I really need to be able to access hppts for SSL?

Hi,

my site URL is http://www.xtracool.com.au/

https://www.xtracool.com.au/ results in a "no route to host error"

I have explained to my web hosting people that Zencart advises:

"FIRST, make sure you've got SSL enabled on your hosting account. Work with your hosting company to get a certificate installed and to purchase one if necessary.
Can you get to "https://www.your_site.com" ? If not, ask your hosting company how to do it. If you can't access your site using an HTTPS:// address, don't try to enable SSL in Zen Cart or you'll just end up with broken pages in your store!!!"

But they inform me that the site has SSL enabled and the secure server is as below so I should not have a problem
https://secure1.ilisys.com.au/password (password altered)-which is my site when i use this URL

Should I go ahead and try - I'm mindfull of the advice that I could end up with broken pages

I know nothing about SSL, so any advice would be appreciated
Regards
Alan

HTTPS link provided by your host is Shared SSL .. zencart can work with shared SSL .. but to do so , you need to copy all your files and folders ( duplicate ) and move them to Shared SSL .. then enable SSL in configure.php files with changes to SSL path within configure.php .
its better to get your own Certificate , and ask your host to install it for you . once that is done .. you need to enable SSL in both configure.php files without additional configurations or any file/ folder duplication .

tony_sar:

HTTPS link provided by your host is Shared SSL .. zencart can work with shared SSL .. but to do so , you need to copy all your files and folders ( duplicate ) and move them to Shared SSL .. then enable SSL in configure.php files with changes to SSL path within configure.php .
its better to get your own Certificate , and ask your host to install it for you . once that is done .. you need to enable SSL in both configure.php files without additional configurations or any file/ folder duplication .

While this is the case in certain instances its not the norm anymore.
you would only need to do this if thre is no symlink built into the system to allow http and https protocals from the same folder set

also I would be concerned if the shared url has /password in it this is usually setup to be the username

you will need to confer with your host to see if they do infact require the use of 2 seperate folders ( not prefered since you then have to maintain 2 seperate sets of files which is not only a pain but uses up 2x of your allotted space )

Refer to this FAQ: https://www.zen-cart.com/tutorials/index.php?article=14
Yours will likely be like one of the last 2 examples under "Shared Certificate".

Thanks to all who replied to my post

The bit I'm concerned about is that I cannot access
"https://xtracool.com.au"
but the tutorial
https://www.zen-cart.com/tutorials/index.php?article=14[/URL]
says not to attempt to enable SSL unless I can access "https://xtracool.com.au" lest I break something in ZenCart

My website host tells me that its OK to use SSL since I can access the secure server via
"https://secure1.ilisys.com.au/xtrac"

I am quite happy to enable SSL and have a play with it (that's how I've learned what I know already about ZenCart), but I don't want to break anything in Zen Cart in the process. I'm a bit confused as I am geting conflicting info from Web Hosting folk and ZenCart Tutorial.

Hope this makes sense
Appreciate your help

Regards
Alan

Your not able to access "https://xtracool.com.au" because you do not have a dedicated SSL cert issued to that domain name. In this case you would use the shared ssl on the server, which is the url the host gave you. That is a perfectly normal thing to do for people that don't need/want to get their own dedicated ssl and don't use a payment module where the gateway requires you to have your own.

Thaks Mike,

I will give it a go

thanks everyone for being patient with my lack of knowledge/understanding

Alan