SSL Certificates

[tmcd35]

Hi,

 

I need to get a SSL certificate for our IIS/Apache servers. I think I need a single wild card cert that I can apply to multiple servers? Anyone got any recommendations on where to get one from and how much we should be paying?

 

Thanks

[Oaktech]

We have a godaddy wildcard for about £200, seems ok!

[Norphy]

We got ours from Digicert

 

Wildcard SSL Certificate - DigiCert® Unlimited Server Wildcards

 

They're not cheap though so unless you have loads of services, you may be better getting individual certificates. JANET do a fairly robust certificate service for education which isn't too expensive.

[dean41]

We have always used Janet for ours. They are normally fairly good.

[FN-GM]

We use the 123-reg wildcard SSL, just the basic one. We got it for 5 years. £300 excluding VAT. We use it on quite a number of services. 2 x Web Servers, Exchange, SSL VPN, Citrix, NetScaler & 2 x ADFS. https://www.123-reg.co.uk/ssl-certificates/wildcard-ssl-certificates.shtml

 

Exchange needs a SAN certificate, and we have a few host names for SSL VPN. Overall we save a few quid, plus makes life easier when we need one. It works out cheaper if you buy 5 years, plus you don't have to keep messing about changing them on renewal.

Edited March 5, 2014 by FN-GM

[burgemaster]

Janet offer free SSLs for education including SAN and enterprise authenticated. They may possibly be £35 now or that might be next month.

[Paul_Fielder]

Do you have any contact details? I asked our local authority last year and never heard back!

[detjo]

I got one from ipsCA. It's only for one year and it's not a wildcard, but it's free for edu

[Norphy]

Janet offer free SSLs for education including SAN and enterprise authenticated. They may possibly be £35 now or that might be next month.

 

Janet have been charging for certs for months now. They also don't do wildcards for entire domains, they only do them for subdomains. Which isn't much good.

[FN-GM]

I got one from ipsCA. It's only for one year and it's not a wildcard, but it's free for edu

 

Problem is they are not trusted on all devices.

[imunro01]

Have a look at StartSSL.com - they do free certificates, but can't remember off the top of my head if they're wildcard certs

[computer_expert]

I got one from ipsCA. It's only for one year and it's not a wildcard, but it's free for edu

 

If you go to their main website it now redirects to a godaddy holding page. If you go to their certificates website it says that the sale of certificates have been suspended.

 

I noticed this when I went to renew one of our certificates a few weeks ago.

[sonofsanta]

If you do get a GoDaddy cert (and up till now I've been using one without complaint for three years), don't ever renew until you need to. Our cert expires on Saturday, but they warned in January, so I renewed then like a good sysadmin.

 

Except in the intervening time I've switched to Office 365, don't need so many SAN, thought I'd cancel and get a refund for the unused three years and get five years of a 5-SAN cert for the same price.

 

Except they didn't tell me a) they don't refund the VAT b) they pro-rata the refund from the date of purchase - and they only refund whole years. So having paid £400 something inc VAT for a three year cert that I've not used any of the time, I've only got £225 of credit. Grrr!

 

EDIT: I may have gotten angry when replying to the support ticket...

So essentially I've paid £406 inc VAT for a three year renewal when notified of upcoming expiry (like a good sysadmin), not used any of the time it was valid for, and yet only been refunded £225? I would have been better off just using the old certificate still, and would have done just that if anyone had told me about any of these issues ahead of time - but if you read down the conversation, I was just told I'd get credit for unused years remaining, which given that I had three years remaining, sounded very much like I'd be refunded for three years!

 

I am now in a situation where I have cancelled a 10-SAN 3 year UCC cert and been left with insufficient credit to purchase a 5-SAN 3 year UCC cert. I am out of pocket for having tried to save myself some money without any warning that I'd end up in this situation. I will end up paying £35 extra to get a lesser product!

 

I would just about be able to accept the fact that the VAT isn't refunded, but this wasn't warned beforehand, and isn't mentioned on your refund page at all, so that's essentially a hidden fee for requesting a refund.

 

Not refunding me for one of the three years that I haven't used because I gave you my money sooner than I needed to is grossly offensive, frankly.

 

None of this particularly encourages early renewal, does it?

 

Please do consider this a formal complaint and pass it on to any customer service representative you have. I cannot find contact details for a complaints desk anywhere.

- Matt

Edited March 6, 2014 by sonofsanta

[tmcd35]

Thanks all, I've gone for a 1yr standard wildcard certificate from godaddy. Under £200 (just) which I think is reasonable and should meet our immediate requirements.