Need a dedicated IP / Auto renewal available yet?

newtothis123 · October 28, 2016, 12:53am

Hi there,

I’m totally new to this and still trying to find a host for my first wordpress site.

I’m not techie so this forum looks quite intimidating to me.

But in search of a host, I’d need to know

Do I need a dedicated ip to use the SSL here?
Is the automatic renewal feature currently available to everybody already? Otherwise, it’s good for 90 days only.

Thank you so much.

schoen · October 28, 2016, 1:00am

Hi @newtothis123,

① Almost nobody needs a dedicated IP address to use Let’s Encrypt’s certificates (or any other certificates). You only need this in order to support older browsers that don’t support the Server Name Indication (SNI) technology.

You can read about which browsers that would be at

There’s nothing in any way specific to Let’s Encrypt about this. It’s true of any certificate that you might get for an HTTPS site.

② Automatic renewal is implemented on the client side, not on the certificate authority side. So whether you can use automatic renewal depends entirely on whether the host supports it (or whether the tools you’re using support it). To put it another way, automatic renewal isn’t a feature provided by Let’s Encrypt, but only by various pieces of software that get certificates from Let’s Encrypt, or by various hosts that integrate with Let’s Encrypt.

I hope this helps. Please let us know if you have any further questions or any follow-up questions.

newtothis123 · October 28, 2016, 3:39am

Hi Schoen,

Thank you very much for your reply. I now have a better picture of how this thing works.

I was just chatting with TMDHosting, which is not listed on your list of providers that support Let’s Enscript, but their sales told me they can not only provide Let’s Encrypt SSL to me but auto renew it for me. I was pleasantly surprised but also couldn’t help feeling it sounds a bit too good to be true. Could it be a false promise just to sell? But they have very good reviews online, which can be deceiving these days, so I don’t know what to make of this, especially they are not on your list.

schoen · October 28, 2016, 5:26am

@newtothis123, the list of providers that support Let’s Encrypt is mainly based on self-reporting. Given the way that Let’s Encrypt works, hosting providers don’t need to have a contract, license, or other kind of deal with us in order to use our services to get certificates for their customers (and as you probably know, those services are provided at no charge). So it’s quite possible that there are several more hosting providers that do provide Let’s Encrypt certificates and that aren’t on the list yet.

newtothis123 · October 28, 2016, 10:26pm

Hi Schoen,

Thank you so much for your quick response. This has been a very positive experience for me on this site. Thanks.

Osiris · October 29, 2016, 1:59am

The provider named above mentions Let's Encrypt as a service, free of charge: Fully Managed Web Hosting Crafted for Superior Performance & Speed

However, the following answer on their FAQ (see somewhere below on the page) I can't quite follow:

HOW CAN I USE THE FREE SSL CERTIFICATE FOR MY WEBSITE?
You will be able to use the free SSL certificate for your website if you decide to use the the “temporary” link -- the link which contains the server’s hostname. In order to have this certificate enabled and your website re-configured, please open a new support ticket from your Client Area and we will gladly assist you with your request.

In case you would like to use an SSL certificate for your domain name, an error message will be displayed that your domain does not have an SSL certificate, therefore, a private SSL certificate will need to be installed.

newtothis123 · October 29, 2016, 11:56pm

Further looking into TMDHosting providing Let’s Encrypt SSL to us for free, I just realized they do not offer “Dynamic Site Seal” if I get my Let’s Encrypt SSL from them.

First off, is “Dynamic Site Seal” the same as SSL Seal? Do they mean the same thing or different level of SSL certificates?

When i asked them do we get an SSL seal if we get a Let’s Encrypt SSL from them, the sales became devious on her reply. In the end she said,

“Let’s encrypt SSL is a free SSL certificate, which is why it does not come with all the features of other SSL certificates, that are paid. The Let’s Encrypt SSL certificate does not come with the dynamic site seal, which is why we cannot provide it.”
“If you wish to have the Dynamic Site Seal, you can purchase our Standard SSL certificate by GlobalSign, which will provide you this seal :)”

She also said The Dynamic Site Seal is the SSL Seal I was referring to.

Are all this true? I did a quick search on whether Let’s Encrypt SSL comes with a seal but did not find anything specifically clarifying that.

I assume an SSL seal is for our site visitors to gain confidence in us, so it’s something we should have, correct?

I’m planning to use Stripe as my payment gateway, and use Paid Memebrship Pro plugin for my Wordpress site to integrate with Stripe, and in PMPro Settings, I’d need to provide codes for an ssl seal.

Also this is Stripe’s instructions of how to get our site PCI Compliant,

It mainly includes two things:
1.Serve your payment pages securely using Transport Layer Security (TLS) so that they make use of HTTPS
2.Use Checkout or Stripe.js to accept payment information, which is securely transmitted directly to Stripe’s servers without it passing through your servers

Those info may not be necessaty, but I’d like to find out

if Let’s Encrypt SSL really deos not come with an SSL seal,
If it’s in fact TMDHosting does not want to provide us one so we’ll have to buy something from them, in that case, can we get it from you directly and be able to get the seal? And if we choose the latter, I think we probably still need the assistance from the host, correct? Can they withold my SSL seal if I need them to install both the SSL and the seal for me?

I apologize for the lengthy description. I just want to provide a whole picture so a best / most efficient possible solution / clarification may be reached quicker.

Thank you.

schoen · October 30, 2016, 12:09am

Hi @newtothis123, I’m not sure I’ve ever heard of an “SSL Seal”. Perhaps it’s just a logo that’s used for marketing purposes?

Let’s Encrypt does not provide anything like that, but it shouldn’t be relevant to how secure your site is or how secure your users are unless someone is also auditing your site security as part of it. But again, I think this is just a marketing thing and not providing any technical benefits.

I’m also not familiar with Paid Membership Pro. In general, I don’t think Stripe has any requirement to obtain a seal or logo in order for a site to integrate with them. Maybe this is a popular thing in some parts of the industry, but I have a hard time believing that it’s an official requirement for anything.

Let’s Encrypt is not checking, and does not have a way to check, that a site is “secure” or hasn’t been hacked or is safe against hacking. Let’s Encrypt confirms that the encryption key that a site is using was previously controlled by someone who appeared to control that site, which is very important and is also far from the only consideration for online security.

system · November 29, 2016, 12:10am

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