[thelist] static ip address + ssl

[Joshua Olson]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: A Maynes
> Sent: Friday, July 16, 2004 11:10 AM
>
> Hi All
>
> Just wondering if there are any downsides to having a domain (.co.uk)
> hosted with a static ip address?
>
> I am about to purchase a ssl certificate specific to a domain as opposed
> to using the hosts shared cert and part of the process means giving the
> domain an ip address.  Presumably there are no downsides to this but
> thought it would be best to double check ;)

Andrew,

With SSL, the domain must have it's own IP.  It's common practice to host
multiple sites on a single IP address and differentiate between them using
the host name in the request.  But, with SSL, the host name is encrypted
along with the rest of the request.  Since the SSL certificate is bound to
the domain name, you have to already know which domain the request is for
before the request is decrypted.  The only way to do this is to put the
domain on it's own IP to differentiate request for it from requests to other
domains.  (technically, you could use another port on the same IP, but this
would force a non-typical URL, such as https://www.domain.com:495/)

<><><><><><><><><><>
Joshua Olson
Web Application Engineer
WAE Tech Inc.
http://www.waetech.com/service_areas/
706.210.0168