Install commercial SSL certificates
Foreword
In our Customer Center, you can purchase paid certificates from the certification authority Sectigo, among others. This help center article covers the installation of these paid certificates.
Requirements
- Sectigo SSL certificate
- Plesk Control Panel
Please note that certificates are not automatically installed on your server after being issued in the Help Center. We also offer an alternative SSL installation service for this, further information can be found at: SSL installation service.
Installation of the SSL certificate
To install the certificate on servers with the Plesk Control Panel, you must log in to the Plesk Control Panel, for more information see: Login to Plesk Control Panel
Once you are logged into the Plesk Control Panel, navigate to Tools & Settings → SSL/TLS Certificates. Here you can see the list of certificates that have already been installed in the server pool.
By clicking on the Add button, you can add new SSL certificates to the server pool.
Upload individual certificate components
By clicking on the Download components button, it is possible to download the individual certificate components Private Key (.key), Server Certificate (.crt) and the CA Bundle (ca-bundle.crt as a .zip archive and upload them to the Plesk server.
As soon as the download of the files is complete, the files can be unpacked and then the three files can be uploaded. To do this, you can use the Select file buttons under Upload certificate files in the Plesk Control Panel.
Upload the certificates here in the desired order, starting with the Private Key (.key), followed by the Server Certificate (.crt) and finally the CA Bundle (ca-bundle.crt). Click on the Upload certificate button to upload the certificate components.
After installation, the certificate must be assigned to the domain. To do this, follow the section on Assigning an SSL certificate to a domain.
Copy & paste certificate components
Plesk also offers the option of installing the individual SSL certificate components via copy & paste. To do this, you must call up the individual components in the Customer Center and copy them.
If the private key is not displayed, this is because it is an extension. By default, the private key does not change during an extension.
The individual certificate components can be copied here directly from the Customer Center and pasted in the Plesk Control Panel under Upload certificate as text.
Please note that spaces or line breaks in the certificate component can be responsible for errors here.
Insert the data from the customer center here step by step and confirm the action with the Upload certificate button.
After installation, the certificate must be assigned to the domain. To do this, follow these instructions under Assign SSL certificate to a domain.
Assign SSL certificate to a domain
To assign the previously installed SSL certificate to a domain, navigate in Plesk to Websites & Domains → respective domain → Hosting and DNS → Hosting. Here you can select the SSL certificate used in the hosting settings.
Select the previously installed certificate under SSL/TLS support in order to assign it to the domain. After making the changes, you can save the setting by clicking the Save button.
Renew SSL certificate
To update the SSL certificate after a renewal on the server, it is necessary to update the server certificate and the CA bundle in the SSL certificate already in use.
To do this, navigate to your Plesk Control Panel → Websites & Domains → to Domain → SSL/TLS Certificates.
Here you select the SSL certificate you want to renew and update the Server Certificate (.crt) and the CA Bundle (ca-bundle.crt) with the new data from the Customer Center.
Please ensure that you do not store any incorrect certificate components on the server, as this may lead to unwanted errors.