Forum

I have custody of an Alpha signed SSL certificate bought from DynaDot.  It will expire in roughly four months.  I would like to bump it up by two years now that we've got everything in place and are in the last stages of site development.

Because the expiration date is part of the certificate I expect we will need to go through the entire and somewhat ill described installation process.  Further complicating matters is that we have to register our public certificate with a third party (PayPal) and don't want to have to do that every year.  Therefore we'd like to get a longer term SSL certificate so the site can be opened without any worries about the SSL certificate for the next three years.

However, the DynaDot SSL listing in my account says "cannot be renewed at this time".

Is it possible to renew the existing SSL certificate? How?  Would it be better to abandon the certificate and just get a new longer-term one?

Regards,

Pat Ampulla

Uck!  Renewal windows are a PITA.

The 4 or 5 months lost on the certificate isn't all that expensive.

It costs a heck of a lot more to wade back into the server 4 months from now and diddle the renewed certificate into operation.  At the moment we're already up to our armpits configuring and testing the server so it's probably more cost effective to get a new longer term certificate now -- and there's no risk of missing the renewal window.

The one thing that would change this calculus is if I can renew an Alpha signed SSL certificate without having to make any changes on the server.  Do you know if I will be required to change anything on my server once I'm finally allowed to renew?

I suspect the certificate itself will change after a renewal because of the new expiration (expiry) date.  At a minimum that suggests I'd need to reload the certificate on the server and probably generate a new public key; but, I'm hoping you know for sure.

Regards,

Pat

You can renew your certificate starting 60 days before expiration.  

Is it possible to renew the existing SSL certificate? How?  

It is possible.  Once you are within the renewal period, a checkbox will appear next to your SSL certificate and you'll be able to initiate a renewal order.


Would it be better to abandon the certificate and just get a new longer-term one?

You can do that, but you'd end up losing time on your already purchased certificate.   You also get a free month when you renew, so if your certificate expires in 4 months, you'd be losing about 5 months worth of time.