WordPress MU

So, I've searched through the forums for 'ssl' and 'https' and a few other things, and there is a certain amount of info about getting https to work with your admin pages, I can't seem to find what I need, so here goes. If I'm wrong and it's out there somewhere, a link would be much appreciated. Additionally, I'm not even sure what I want is possible.

I admit to being a little flummoxed by the whole ssl certificate business, having never needed it before, so if you answer this, a little explanation of concepts would be helpful.

I have a dv3.5 server at Media Temple, and I'm hosting most of my clients' websites in MU. So, I have mu setup using subdomains, and then I just point my client's domain the the mu ip address, and away I go. Works great.

Now, however, I'm hosting a new client for an e-commerce shop (with the Wordpress E-commerce plugin), and I thought I could avoid the whole ssl debacle by using Google Checkout. However, the Google Checkout API Callback URL is required to be https, and it's giving me an error that looks to me like a domain mismatch for the (default shared plesk) ssl certificate.

I'm assuming I could get around this by installing a private ssl certificate on the server, but then this client's domain becomes the only one with a valid ssl certificate, which won't work.

So, the question is, is there a way to install an ssl certificate for multiple (or all) of the domains which are pointed at the mu installation? Or am I thinking of all of this completely bass-ackwards.

Thanks for the help!

I believe you will need a "wildcard" SSL certificate. I have no idea how to deploy that though.

and last I checked that plguin didn't quite work well with MU. unless they very recently released support.

(on first try, it *looks* like it works - until you have more than one shop. So test it well.)

A wildcard certificate is only valid on one primary domain, but covers any instance (meaning subdomain) of that domain. It will not, however, cover just the domain itself.

Example:

one.domain.tld, two.domain.tld, three.domain.tld would all be covered by a wildcard.

domain.tld would not be covered by the wildcard, as it only covers *.domain.tld.

Since it appears that you are running multiple domains, one certificate will not suffice. The downside it, a certificate can only match up to one virtual host.

You could get a wildcard, which would work, but the site would have to be called by its subdomain and not the actual domain you have pointing to it.

There are some wildcard certs that do work with the base domain as well. I have one from GoDaddy that covers all the subdomains and the main domain as well. It doesn't work with any other domain though on that IP address.

If you require multiple domain certs I would imagine that you need a ssl cert for each domain (wildcard or not up to you) and an IP for each domain as well.

Trent

Like Trent said, my understanding is you need a unique certificate, and unique ip address for each domain when it comes to ssl certificates.