[FX.php List] [OFF] Strange SSL cert occurrences...

[Longterm Solutions]

Here's my latest conundrum with setting up this new site:

I have a global SSL cert on all of my web servers, that clients can  
use on their sites. It is pointed to the root of the web server's  
documents folder, rather than a specific site folder, so that anyone  
on the server can invoke it by configuring their URL properly. Works  
great, been doing this for years...

However, my new client wanted his own SSL cert so that the domain name  
at the top wouldn't ever change while someone was on the site. So I  
installed his new cert, and it worked perfectly...

But it stopped the *other* cert from working. So I changed the order  
of the sites, putting the "global" cert listing at the top of the  
list, and again the global cert works properly.

It seems that, since the "global" cert is global to the whole  
webserver folder, that it somehow takes precedence over the site- 
specific one.

I'm using virtual hosting, as I've done for 12 years; when someone  
puts in a domain name, the web server takes them to the appropriate  
folder, based on the domain name.

But what is happening is this: someone types in this other domain name  
(the one which has its own cert), and although they get to the  
appropriate site folder, the web server invokes the other certificate.

So, I took a static IP address (I have a block of 60) that I wasn't  
using, assigned it to the "global" domain name, which is  
ssl3.longtermsolutions.com, and everything started working perfectly.

It *seems* that when you use virtual hosting, the domain name that has  
its own cert will for some strange reason "default" to the global  
cert, even though it's been assigned its own cert. Then, when the two  
domain names are separated by IP, it all cleans up.

What a pain...

Bob Patin
Longterm Solutions LLC
bob at longtermsolutions.com
615-333-6858
http://www.longtermsolutions.com
Twitter: bobpatin
iChat/AIM: bobpatin
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