SSL Certificate over multiple servers

External Since: May 09, 2004 Posts: 1

Can anyone advise!

I wish to run an SSL secure site over multiple web
servers. I generated an CSR on one web server and
received the certificate back from verisign and installed
on this server. I then backed up the cert & private key
and imported this into the other servers. When I open
the certificate MMC snapin and view the certificate it
displays "This Certificate has expired or is not yet
Valid" and this is the same for all servers I have
imported the Cert into. The original server Certificate
is fine/valid.

can anyone point me as to where I am going wrong with
this Implementation!!

The setup is W2k IIS5, these servers run multiple site
but this is the only SSL site setup.

Many Thanks!!

External Since: Apr 12, 2004 Posts: 214

John Noel wrote:

> Can anyone advise!
>
> I wish to run an SSL secure site over multiple web
> servers. I generated an CSR on one web server and
> received the certificate back from verisign and installed
> on this server. I then backed up the cert & private key
> and imported this into the other servers. When I open
> the certificate MMC snapin and view the certificate it
> displays "This Certificate has expired or is not yet
> Valid" and this is the same for all servers I have
> imported the Cert into. The original server Certificate
> is fine/valid.
>
> can anyone point me as to where I am going wrong with
> this Implementation!!
>
> The setup is W2k IIS5, these servers run multiple site
> but this is the only SSL site setup.
>
> Many Thanks!!

Are you browsing another ssl sites via a different URL ? If yes - alas,
that's a behavior by design. Cert is issued per a URL. In other words,
if you purchased a cert for <a style='text-decoration: underline;' href="https://www.domain.name," target="_blank">https://www.domain.name,</a> you will receive a
security prompt trying to use it with <a style='text-decoration: underline;' href="https://www2.domain.name." target="_blank">https://www2.domain.name.</a>

Solution:

1. To run a few web servers in a Network Load Balance mode (all Web
sites are responding on the same name)

2. To purchase a so-called "wild-card" certificate, which would be valid
for anything looks like <a style='text-decoration: underline;' href="https://" target="_blank">https://</a>*.domain.name

-Andrey