Installing Cert on Namecheap.com Shared Hosting

Has anybody been able to install Let’s Encrypt SSL certificates on Namecheap.com shared hosting before? If so, can you please, please, please help me figure out how to do it. Thanks

Domain: http://lipsynched.com

Server: Apache 2.4.39

OS: Linux (unsure what distro; kernal: 2.6.32-954.3.5.lve1.4.66.el6.x86_64)

Host: Namecheap.com Shared Hosting

Root: No

Control: cPanel 78.0 (build 34)

Hi @bmf,

NameCheap has a contract with another certificate authority which prevents them from integrating Let’s Encrypt support in a convenient way.

You can find some earlier threads about NameCheap on this forum

https://community.letsencrypt.org/search?q=namecheap%20cpanel%20order%3Alatest

which may have useful suggestions for you.

3 Likes

Yeah, support didn’t seem to friendly to the idea. Is it possible nonetheless?!

I am wondering how I can go about generating certificates (and or keys and or whatever else might be necessary) locally in order to upload the files to my shared hosting provider, so that I can install additional SSL certificates beyond the free ones that were provided.

I can’t seem to find a “download” button anywhere on the CertBot website.

How can I download CertBot and generate some certificates?

I’m running Windows 10. Is this possible to do on Windows?

Server: Apache 2.4.39

OS: Linux (unsure what distro; kernal: 2.6.32-954.3.5.lve1.4.66.el6.x86_64)

Host: Namecheap.com Shared Hosting

Root: No

Control: cPanel 78.0 (build 34)

Hi @bmf

Certbot doesn't work with Windows 10.

Start with some basics:

Then select one of the windows clients:

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Direct link to Windows clients to save some scrolling: https://letsencrypt.org/docs/client-options/#clients-windows-/-iis

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Any idea if it is possible to generate certificates with shell access to my shared hosting account without root privileges?

So installing those repos on Windows will allow me to generate certificates?

If you’re doing this to install shared certificates on a shared hosting provider (rather than locally on Windows), could you share some information about your shared hosting? That’s the information that counts.

For example, what company provides the shared hosting? Is the control panel cPanel or Plesk or something else? What is your domain name?

ive edited my question and added all that stuff

Ah, I see that this is a duplicate of your other thread: Installing Cert on Namecheap.com Shared Hosting.

Basically, it’s not really possible to do automatically renewing Let’s Encrypt on Namecheap shared hosting. The one way it might be possible is if you have SSH access to your cPanel account. You can try use acme.sh, following along this tutorial: https://github.com/Neilpang/acme.sh/wiki/Simple-guide-to-add-TLS-cert-to-cpanel . But it’s a bit “advanced”.

Otherwise, you can try to manually issue and install the certificate. Keep in mind, these certificates are only valid 90 days, which means you’d have to repeat the process at least that often. You don’t have to download an ACME client to do this, you can do it using your browser.

For example, using ZeroSSL (https://zerossl.com/free-ssl/#crt). If you use ZeroSSL, you can follow along one of the cPanel-related videos on this page: https://zerossl.com/ssl-videos.html

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I really don’t care if I have to manually update the SSL certificates every 3 months. My big concern is getting SSL certs for my other domains without paying as much as the domain itself for an additional SSL certificate.

I have to get off now, but I’ll be back tomorrow.

I believe I still do have access to the shell, but without root privileges! I’ll take a look at that tutorial you linked.

How exactly can I use the browser to generate or issue the certificates? The ZeroSSL stuff?

Man, I’m in a real bind right now. I’ve got 40 domains that don’t have SSL, which is obviously a major issue. I’ve got 5 options:

  • Buy individual SSL certificates from Namecheap, which would basically double my cost.
  • Potentially buy additional hosting accounts, which might interfere with email forwarders, having a single database, etc
  • Switch providers to one that provides free SSLs, but, from my limited knowledge of hosting providers, this would detract from things like email functionality that I need
  • Use 301 redirects instead of having a bunch of individual pages, which would detract from the data I’m collecting on my websites
  • Try installing free SSLs manually on my current hosting account

Perhaps check acme.sh. There is a namecheap dns support:

53. Use Namecheap

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I will be testing this as soon as I have finished my other tests.

Thanks <333

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I have done it many times . Namecheap don’t help as they want to sell you their Comodo certificates.
I use “ssl for free” - https://www.sslforfree.com - to generate the LetsEncrypt certificates and then install them using cPanel. The downside is that I have to renew each one manually every three months.

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Ok, glad to know you can do it for free.

Sucks that I’ve already redirected everything and recoded my website to adjust for it. I guess I’ll switch back once I’m done doing everything else I need to do.

They really should create an option whereby you can choose longer terms like a year or something.

There was a report that they signed a contract with Comodo, prior to the launch of Let's Encrypt, which obligates them to only provide Comodo certificates in their integrated services. Last November, @_az found this comment apparently by their CEO

Hello Fej, to be honest, we signed an exclusive contract with Comodo before Let's Encrypt even existed. The length of that contract is ten years. It's put us in a tough situation as far as what we can offer out of the box to our customers. While our customers can still install LE on our hosting services on their own, we can't actively do this for them. The only other option here is to break that contract which will cost us millions of dollars and it's something that I continue to consider.

This makes me think that this is much less of an ongoing deliberate decision by Namecheap, compared to, say, GoDaddy.

1 Like

I think it’s simply PR because I remember way back their support agents would at least help you set-up a Let’s Encrypt SSL.

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