Generating Certificate Signing Requests

If your hosting provider does not allow purchasing SSL certificates through Plesk, you can create a certificate signing request and submit it to an SSL certificate provider. The provider will generate an SSL certificate for your website basing on this request.

To generate a certificate signing request:

1. Open the corresponding subscription on the Control Panel
2. Go to the Websites & Domains and select the website you want to protect with an SSL certificate.
3. Click Secure Your Sites.
4. Click Add SSL Certificate.
5. Specify the following certificate parameters:
   • Certificate name. This will help you identify this certificate in the repository.
   • Encryption level. Choose the encryption level of your SSL certificate. We recommend that you choose a value more than 1024 bit.
   • Your location and organization name. The values you enter should not exceed the length of 64 symbols.
   • The domain name for which you want to purchase an SSL certificate. This should be a fully qualified domain name. Example: your-domain.com.
   • The website administrator's email address.
6. Make sure that all the provided information is correct and accurate, as it will be used to generate your private key.
7. Click Request. Plesk will generate your private key and certificate signing request and add them to your certificates repository (Websites & Domains > Secure Your Sites).
8. In the list of certificates, click the name of the certificate you need.
9. Locate the CSR section on the page, and copy the text that starts with the line -----BEGIN CERTIFICATE REQUEST----- and ends with the line -----END CERTIFICATE REQUEST----- to the clipboard.
10. Visit the website of the certification authority from which you want to purchase an SSL certificate, and follow the links on their site to start a certificate ordering procedure. When you are prompted to specify CSR text, paste the data from the clipboard into the online form and click Continue. The certification authority will create an SSL certificate in accordance with the information you supplied.