[thelist] Apache: SSL and Virtual hosts

[Phil Turmel]

Frank wrote:
> 
> I've finally suceeded in getting SSL to work on my testing machine 
> thanks to the following article:
> 
> http://www.tek-tips.com/faqs.cfm?fid=4315
> 
> -- and of course it wasn't until I had it working that  I rememberd that 
> <frank smacks his forhead> SSL is dependent on an IP!   There's no 
> per-virtual-host method of doing SSL.
> 
> Well, I want to anyway, and I'm wondering if anyone could offer me any 
> interesting work arounds. At the very least I'd be happy if I could 
> assign it to one single virtual host. Ideas anyone?
> 
> 
> 
> Frank Marion     lists at frankmarion.com      Keep the signal high.
> 
> 
Frank,

There's a solution for you, in particular, because you'll settle for a 
single supported host: within the ssl.conf file, have everything (host 
name, certificate, doc root) refer to the one host for which you want 
ssl support.

In general, ssl won't cooperate in a virtual host environment because 
the encryption certificate has to be chosen (for the target host) and 
encryption started before the client has a chance to send the HOST: 
header.  Your browser will then notice the server is using a certificate 
from a host other than the one you asked for, and pop up a security 
warning.  Even the 'www.' prefix has to be present or not exactly as the 
encryption certificate says.

Apache has a faq section on this very issue:

http://httpd.apache.org/docs/2.0/ssl/ssl_faq.html#vhosts

Sorry to dash your hopes.... (Of course, if the apache docs are wrong, 
and someone does have a work-around, I'd love to hear it, too.)

Phil