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How To Manually install an SSL Certificate


An SSL certificate is a feature that allows your website to transfer information securely over the internet. It is essential if you plan on collecting personal information like credit card information on your website. You can add one to your account by following the steps below. This article will show you how to purchase and manually install an SSL Certificate to cPanel.

Step 1: Purchase an SSL Certificate

  1. Click on the SSL tab in CHI


  2. Select the Certificate you want to purchase.
  3. Enter your domain name.
  4. Finish the checkout process.

Step 2: Configure your SSL Certificate

Once your SSL certificate has been purchased, please go to your SSL certificates area in your Chi account and you should be able to see that it is ready to be configured. 

  1. Click on the SSL tab in CHI.

  2. Click the “configure” button next to the domain for which you just purchased the SSL.


  3. Fill in your hostname in the field and click “proceed.”


  4. Confirm your hostname and click “No, I will install manually myself.”

Step 3: Generate and upload a CSR

A CSR (Certificate of Signing Request) is an encrypted certificate containing your personal information. It is used to obtain an SSL certificate. Follow the steps in this article to manually generate a CSR.

How to Generate a CSR

For Server Software, select "Apache/ModSSL" from the drop-down menu

After you generate your CSR, upload it by clicking “Upload CSR File”

Step 4: Verify certificate details and click “Proceed.”

  1. If you are not using the default UK2 nameservers, you will need to add the CNAME given to you and then click “Verify CNAME Changes” This process may take up to 24 hours to complete.
    If your Nameservers/DNS are controlled by another provider, you will need to take the CNAME record and add this record in with them. 
  2. After the CNAME changes are verified, click proceed.

Step 5: Allow time for the certificate to validate

  1. After the certificate details have been verified, the account with go through a few validation steps. First, it will validate with Comodo. Then an SSL will be generated. These processes can take several hours to complete, but you can check the status of your certificate at any time from the status screen.


  2. When the validation has been completed, the status page will inform you that your SSL certificate has been successfully generated.

Step 6: Download and import the certificate to cPanel

  1. Click on the SSL tab in CHI
    You will then see your SSL certificate and a button to download the files.


  2. Click the blue "Download" button.
    The compressed file will be downloaded and saved to your computer. The location of the download is important as it will be needed later on. Once you have downloaded the zip folder you need to access your cPanel account. This can be done by navigating to https://yourdomainname.com:2083 in a web browser, or following the steps below.
  3. Click on the “Shared Hosting” icon on the left-hand side navigation bar.

  4. Select your shared hosting package from the list
  5. Click the blue “cPanel” link at the top of the page.


  6. Once in cPanel, navigate to SSL/TLS.


  7. On the right-hand side, locate “CERTIFICATES (CRT)” and click ‘Generate, view, upload, delete SSL certificates'. 


  8. Scroll down to “Upload a New Certificate”. Under this section, you need to click on “Choose File”, and upload your certificate file.


  9. Click “Upload Certificate”


    Now your SSL certificate will be listed within the “CERTIFICATES (CRT)” section. This will allow you to install the SSL certificate on the server.
  10. Navigate back to the ‘Generate, view, upload, delete SSL certificates' section, and click "Install" beside the SSL certificate you have just uploaded.


  11. In most cases, the Private Key (KEY), and Certificate Authority Bundle (CABUNDLE) fields will automatically be filled with the data from your imported certificate. If this is not the case, you will need to enter these values from the other files in the zip folder with all the SSL Certificate files.
  12. Once all the fields are populated, scroll down to the bottom of the page and click “Install Certificate”.
  13. The SSL certificate will then be installed to your cPanel account, confirmed with a popup dialogue box.


Should you have any further issues with your SSL once it has been installed, then please feel free to use an online SSL checker tool. Please bear in mind however that if you have any Mixed content errors or conflicting URL links on your site, this is a development issue and sadly out of our scope of support.

Alternatively, you can also reach out to our support teams via a support chat or support ticket




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