In Certificate Management, you manage SSL certificates for the Local Domains in your license. These certificates secure HTTPS traffic to the corresponding web domain, such as trackable links, web versions, images, system pages, and unsubscribe pages.
This article explains how Certificate Management works and how you can upload an SSL certificate yourself.
Which certificate is used?
By default, Spotler automatically provides the domains in your license with a Let's Encrypt certificate. In this case, Spotler handles both the certificate request and its renewal.
Would you prefer to use a certificate from another Certificate Authority? You can request your own SSL certificate and upload it via Certificate Management. To do this, the Certificate Management functionality must be activated in your license.
To activate Certificate Management, contact your account manager or email sales@spotler.com.
How do CAA records affect certificates?
CAA records in DNS determine which Certificate Authorities are permitted to issue certificates for your domain.
If your domain's CAA records do not permit Let's Encrypt, Spotler cannot automatically request or renew a Let's Encrypt certificate. In that case, you have the following options:
- Ask your DNS administrator to add Let's Encrypt to the CAA records.
- Use your own certificate from a Certificate Authority that is permitted to issue certificates for the domain according to the CAA records.
CAA records are checked when a certificate is requested and renewed. Therefore, when renewing a certificate, also check that the selected Certificate Authority is still permitted.
Who is responsible for renewal?
If you use the standard Let's Encrypt certificate, Spotler automatically handles the certificate request and renewal.
If you use your own certificate, you are responsible for requesting and uploading a new certificate in time. You will receive a notification when the certificate is about to expire. From 30 days before the expiration date, the Request new certificate button becomes available in Certificate Management.
Request and upload the new certificate before the expiration date. Once the certificate has expired, recipients may see a security warning when opening links and pages on the web domain.
How to upload your own SSL certificate
Go to Admin → Certificate Management. Here, you can see which certificate is installed for each Local Domain and until when the certificate is valid.
From 30 days before the expiration date, you can start a request for a new certificate. Click Request new certificate for the relevant domain.
A screen with a form will open. In this form, fill in the data for the CSR file. Once you have filled in the form, click on the Create certificate request file button. The CSR file will now be downloaded.
The CSR (Certificate Signing Request) is required to request a new SSL certificate. Once you have downloaded the CSR file, the Request new certificate button disappears and a new button appears in the column Upload certificate.
Submit the CSR file to the party that issues your SSL certificates, to request the SSL certificate. Once you have obtained the SSL certificate, upload it to the Certificate Management. Click Upload certificate. A screen will open in which you fill in the details of the SSL certificate.
The certificate you received consists of a certificate source and an intermediate certificate source. Open the certificate source and copy the entire text into the text field, including the start line and end line. You can recognize this by:
—–BEGIN CERTIFICATE—–
……
—–END CERTIFICATE—–Paste this in the field Certificate source.
For the text field Intermediate certificate source, you need to copy the text from the intermediate certificate. Copy the text again, including the start line and end line. Paste this text into the text field.
Click Upload. The SSL certificate has been uploaded for the local domain. After a successful upload, the overview of Certificate Management will show that the certificate has been installed correctly and until when the SSL certificate is valid.