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Can I use HTTPS for my CDN Zone?

Contents

  1. How can I use HTTPS for my CDN Zone?
  2. Cost
  3. Price explanation
  4. Why is it better than other FREE SSL Add-ons provided by other Content Delivery Networks?
  5. Requirements
  6. How it works
  7. FREE/Shared SSL

How can I use HTTPS for my CDN Zone?

Traditionally, Pull and Push Zones run over a non-secure connection (HTTP). If you attempt to use the CDN for your encrypted static content through HTTPS, your browser will show you and your end-users an SSL certificate error. This error is generated because you have partially encrypted content on your Website.

In order to have SSL/HTTPS enabled for your zone, you need to order a SSL Add-on package which is included with any NetDNA Enterprise CDN plan, and can be purchased on request for any MaxCDN.com account.

Cost

  • $99.00 Monthly fee.

Included Free with any NetDNA Enterprise CDN Account. Ask one of our Account Managers for more information by calling 323.301.1400 option 1, or use our Sales Live Chat.

Price explanation

The reason why SSL costs as much as it does, is because SSL connections use three times as much bandwidth and hardware resources than normal non-SSL connections. Since your cached content is also replicated throughout each of our edge servers globally, this means that special IP transit infrastructure has to be used for routing, as well as engineering time it takes to install your custom domain SSL certificate on each of those edge servers manually.

Why is it better than other FREE SSL Add-ons provided by other Content Delivery Networks?

Because you get to use your own CNAME/Custom domain for your SSL host, not the CDN provider’s SSL host/IP. This allows a level of white-labeling and personalization that you wouldn’t be able to get at other CDNs. By using your own custom domain to keep URLs consistent on your Website, you also help to improve your SEO and Google PageRank for any of your existing ecommerce storage pages.

Requirements

  • A Pull or Push Zone which you want to enable SSL/HTTPS for.
  • A SSL Certificate to install.

When submitting your request for SSL Certificate installation, you would need to provide us 4 things

  1. We would need the zone name and zone id that you would like to install the certificate on
  2. We would need your custom domain for that zone
  3. You would need to send us a CRT, RSA KEY and CABundle file for your SSL certificate. These will be provided by your SSL Certificate provider, usually in a zip or text file.
  4. You would need to give us authorization to charge your credit card on file, and setup a monthly recurring payment for the SSL Zone add-on service (If a MaxCDN client)

Note: If using more than one custom domain, for example cdn1.domain.com , cdn2.domain.com, and cdn.domain.com on your pull or push zone, you will need to provide us a Wildcard SSL certificate. If, however, you only have one custom domain like static.domain.com on your zone, then you only need to provide us with the single domain SSL Certificate.

How it works

You submit a request to setup a SSL Zone on your CDN account by emailing Billing if MaxCDN, or by emailing or calling your Enterprise CDN Account Manager with the following information:

  • Zone name/ID and custom domain name where you want SSL caching enabled.
  • The SSL certificate you wish to install (following the requirements above).

The billing team will create an invoice for you and charge your card on file. Once paid, our engineering team will proceed with the installation process after verifying all certificate credentials. This process usually has a 48 hour turn-around time from the time we receive your SSL certificate. After installation is complete, you will be notified via email and will be ready to instantly serve HTTPS content through you Pull or Push Zone.

After installation you will be able to access the zone with or without SSL (http/https)

FREE/Shared SSL

MaxCDN Offers another option/solution, which is our Shared SSL. Shared SSL allows you to serve CDN Contents over HTTPS by using out netdna-ssl.com domain. It allows a secondary temporary URL that is over HTTPS which you can use for your SSL Contents. This service is free, and the SSL Certificate is valid and supported on all modern browsers.

To enable Shared SSL. Login to your MaxCDN Account, click on “Manage” next to your Pull Zone from the Dashboard or from Zone Management, then click on the “SSL” tab. Tick the checkbox, hit the update button, and you’re ready to go.

Please note that you cannot use a custom domain name/CNAME with the shared SSL Certificate. If you wish to use a custom domain name, then you will need a custom SSL which is explained in the above section of this article.