How to enable SSL on domain without subdomain? - ssl

I have a rails app and am using Heroku. I have SSL enabled.
https://www.mywebsite.example works just fine.
However, https://mywebsite.example does not work. What is the best approach to address this? Should I redirect https://mywebsite.example to the domain with ‘www’ and if so will the site still be secure.
Or should I enable SSL for https://mywebsite.example as well?
In the domain settings, I have:
Name: www
Type: CNAME
Data: blahblahblah.herokudns.com

Personally I would redirect www to the 'naked' domain and ensure as you have that SSL is installed on the 'naked' domain correctly.
You are then only maintaining a single instance of your site/app, rather than what Google and others will see as two individual 'sites'. (www and naked).

Related

Why won't my https://domain forward to www?

I have a website for my podcast built with Python / Django that is hosted on Heroku: https://dinpodcast.herokuapp.com/
I have a custom domain parked on GoDaddy, dinpodcast.com, that has a www CNAME directing to my heroku application. This works just fine: https://www.dinpoddcast.com
I wanted dinpodcast.com to redirect to the www website, so I have the following domain forwarding set up on Godaddy:
This also works great, for the most part. Now, when I enter http://dinpodcast.com, or just dinpodcast.com, both will redirect to https://www.dinpodcast.com.
Here's the problem. When I enter the naked domain WITH HTTPS, so when I enter https://dinpodcast.com into a browser's address bar, I get the following response:
Here's what I THINK is happening. My SSL certificate is provided by Heroku under their Automated Certificate Management program. So, I assume that since I don't have an SSL certificate with GoDaddy, it's timing out trying to find one before it can redirect to my www subdomain. Would this be correct? If so, is there any way around this WITHOUT buying an SSL certificate with GoDaddy? If that's not what's happening, then what is and how do I fix it?
When you create an ssl certificate in your domain do you include your root domain? Tried using this tool in your root domain and it seems that there is no ssl certificate. However the subdomain https://dinpodcast.herokuapp.com/ has one. I suggest putting an ssl certificate in all subdomain and root domain that you are using.
I also checked the root domain’s IP address using this tool and checked port 443 using another tool and apparently the port is closed. Double check your firewall and make sure 443 is open.

Why is my IONOS 1&1 root not redirecting correctly over ssl?

I have a 1&1 IONOS domain for my heroku app. the www subdomain works fine, with a CNAME setup for it. but I'm trying to redirect the root url to the www subdomain. this also works fine for http, but if the url is typed in as https://example.com, I get a ERR_SSL_PROTOCOL_ERROR (on chrome, other browsers have different errors). this is on any device, regardless of clearing cache and history etc.
my heroku logs show it's never reached, so it must be an issue within 1&1.
theres an ssl cert set on the domain with 1and1, as well as heroku's ACM.
any ideas?
To make the four URL variations (http://example.com, http://www.example.com, https://example.com, and https://www.example.com) point to a different SSL hosted site (heroku, cloudfront, etc), you need three things in IONOS:
Under DNS settings, add a CNAME entry for the www subdomain that points to your SSL hosted site (example.herokuapp.com)
Set up an HTTP Redirect under Domain Forwarding to https://www.example.com (don't check the box that states "Also set up for www subdomain")
Make sure you have an SSL wildcard certificate for *.example.com installed and attached to your domain in IONOS
It looks like all you are missing is number 3. After that, the redirect that you have setup should work as expected.
Note: example.com should be replaced by your actual domain in all of the above.

How to handle two domains and forward everything (non www and www) to one Heroku app?

I have 2 domains, one at Register.com and one at Godaddy. I need them both to point to one Heroku app, and the following scenarios to work:
http://domain1.com
http://domain2.com
http://www.domain1.com
http://www.domain2.com
https://domain1.com
https://domain2.com
https://www.domain1.com
https://www.domain2.com
All of the above should all end up at one heroku app at https://www.domain1.com
Being that it's Heroku, I have no access to the .htaccess, and I've heard you're only allowed one SSL cert per app. I also have forwarding setup at GoDaddy, but apparently forwarding does not work if you try to forward from https on a non-hosted app.
Your cert has to match the domain name that the client will try to answer, this means that when you make it the Subject Alternative Names (SANs) have to include www.domain1.com, domain1.com, www.domain2.com, domain2.com, and the domain/ip of your actual heroku app.
For your DNS records, if the heroku app is at a Fully Qualified Domain Name (FQDN), and not an ip then follow these steps:
Forward your root domain, e.g. example.com to www.example.com, and make the CNAME record www. 300 IN CNAME domain.of.heroku.app
If the heroku app is reachable at a static ip follow this:
Make an the following A records for both your domains:
# 300 IN A ip-here

Permanent SEO-safe 301 Redirect from HTTP to HTTPS Effecting Aliases

I am using Plesk Onyx Version 17.5.3 Update #24. I have Domain->Hosting Settings->Permanent SEO-safe 301 redirect from HTTP to HTTPS checked.
I'm looking for a way to force HTTPS on the primary domain in the Plesk Panel without forcing HTTPS on the aliases.
Alias http://alias.tld for the primary domain https://domain.tld gets redirected to https://alias.tld and a SSL warning about insecure connection appears, instead of redirecting to https://domain.tld which does not get a warning.
If I make an exception for the warning on the alias, it then properly redirects to the primary domain.
What's happening:
http://alias.tld redirects to https://alias.tld
https://alias.tld redirects to https://domain.tld
What I'm expecting:
http://alias.tld redirects to http://domain.tld
http://domain.tld redirects to https://domain.tld
I can even accept:
http://alias.tld redirects to https://domain.tld
Here are some workarounds that I've found:
I can uncheck this box and add .htaccess rules on the primary domain to first redirect the domain and then force the HTTPS. (This would not work since we have non-developers enabling SSL via Plesk and they cannot configure a .htaccess file)
I can redirect the domain at the registrar. (This would not work as clients change their password frequently and we don't always have access to their domain registrar)
I can create the alias as a Domain instead of a Domain Alias and use it's own Web service to redirect to the primary domain. (This would not work as the service plan in Plesk does not allow the subscription to have multiple domains, only multiple domain aliases)
Please note that we are using a single domain SSL provided for free from the hosting company and we are not able to obtain a multi-domain SSL for this purpose.
What are you trying to achieve is currently not possible via Plesk panel.
You could, however, use Let's Encrypt (Plesk extension) to create a SSL certificate for your alias domain.
If you are unable to do that, your hosting company should be able to do it for you.

Using PointDNS on Heroku to manage SSL and non-www to www redirects

I've been using Heroku to host and manage a website of mine that requires an SSL certificate. For the last year and a half I've been using ZerigoDNS to manage my domain and SSL redirecting (although, redirecting from non-https, non-www to https and www does not work).
I just got a notice from Heroku that they will be shutting down ZerigoDNS soon and they recommend switching to PointDNS. I couldn't find any information in the PointDNS documentation about managing SSL redirects.
Here's what I'm looking to do:
non-www non-https redirects to https and www
non-https redirects to https and www
https but non-www redirects to https and www
The reason everything needs to be forwarded to https and www is that's what the ssl cert was created for (the www is required. I don't have a wildcard certificate).
Does anyone familiar with PointDNS know how to to set up the records and redirects properly?
Thanks in advance!
Regarding non-www to www redirects, I just got that to work as follows:
First, you must add both www.your-domain.com and your-domain.com as custom domains.
heroku domains:add andrewpuglionesi.com
heroku domains:add www.andrewpuglionesi.com
I have a CNAME record with name www.my-domain.com.. The text in its data field is my-heroku-domain.herokuapp.com. I also have an alias record with the name my-domain.com., and I made its data field www.my-domain.com. In other words, the alias just points to the CNAME.
I don't know if this is well-advised, but it seems to work (and without sticking www in the user's URL, at that). It simply solves the problem where you can't access pages other than the index without having www there). I like how Heroku and PointDNS' documentation both say you can easily do redirects and then don't actually explain how to... I guess this is one way.
I've previously been able to force https protocol through the backend of a Django site. I can't remember the exact method I used, but you might be able to do it without the DNS stuff.
First, add both www.your-domain.com and your-domain.com as custom domains under settings or run below commands
heroku domains:add domainname.com
heroku domains:add www.domainname.com
For redirection, you need to do it via server, eg. if you are using apache you can achieve redirections via .htacess file.
Also, you can only redirect non-www to www with pointDNS redirect option