Using a Let's Encrypt SSL certificate in the situation where your emails are hosted with GML but your website is hosted elsewhere.
To make use of free "Let's Encrypt" SSL certificates your website hosting must point at our servers.
This is because "Let's Encrypt" SSL certificate requests (creation and renewal) are issued from our Internet servers, and the "Let's Encrypt" servers then look to your website to authenticate the request.
Where your website points elsewhere (i.e. Wix, Yell, etc) the request cannot be authenticated, therefore it is not possible to establish a connection and create or renew a "Let's Encrypt" SSL certificate.
For this reason it is not possible to use a "Let's Encrypt" SSL certificate to secure your mail server or webmail if your website is hosted elsewhere.
There are various paid work-arounds available -
1/ We can re-point your website at our servers and perform a "meta redirect" to your external hosting. This will result in a short delay whilst your website is redirected, and also your URL will change from your Domain name to the URL used by your external hosting. Alternatively some websites can be placed in a "frame" which means you will always see your URL and it will not change as you change pages. With this meta redirect in place you will be able to make use of a free "Let's Encrypt" SSL certificate and it will renew automatically every 90 days without manual intervention. The cost of setting up this "meta redirect" is an estimated 0.25-0.5 hours.
2/ You can purchase a paid SSL certificate for your website that will allow us to secure your email and webmail. These certificates must be renewed annually. Please ask us for a quote.
3/ We can install a "Let's Encrypt" certificate and manually renew it every 90 days. This would involve re-pointing your website at our server to complete the certificate renewal, and would require an estimated 0.5 hrs labour every 90 days.
4/ We can make you a custom mail server and/or webmail URL, secured by a "Let's Encrypt" SSL certificate. Once the URL has been created it will continue to work beyond 90 days without further intervention. However, should the server your website/email is hosted on change then the URL will require re-creating. The cost for this is an estimated 0.25-0.5 hours labour.
5/ We are currently trialling "Let's Encrypt" wildcard certificates which would reduce the labour requirement to (at worst) an estimated 0.25 hrs every 90 days. More on this soon.
1/ We can re-point your website at our servers and perform a "meta redirect" to your external hosting. This will result in a short delay whilst your website is redirected, and also your URL will change from your Domain name to the URL used by your external hosting. Alternatively some websites can be placed in a "frame" which means you will always see your URL and it will not change as you change pages. With this meta redirect in place you will be able to make use of a free "Let's Encrypt" SSL certificate and it will renew automatically every 90 days without manual intervention. The cost of setting up this "meta redirect" is an estimated 0.25-0.5 hours.
2/ You can purchase a paid SSL certificate for your website that will allow us to secure your email and webmail. These certificates must be renewed annually. Please ask us for a quote.
3/ We can install a "Let's Encrypt" certificate and manually renew it every 90 days. This would involve re-pointing your website at our server to complete the certificate renewal, and would require an estimated 0.5 hrs labour every 90 days.
4/ We can make you a custom mail server and/or webmail URL, secured by a "Let's Encrypt" SSL certificate. Once the URL has been created it will continue to work beyond 90 days without further intervention. However, should the server your website/email is hosted on change then the URL will require re-creating. The cost for this is an estimated 0.25-0.5 hours labour.
5/ We are currently trialling "Let's Encrypt" wildcard certificates which would reduce the labour requirement to (at worst) an estimated 0.25 hrs every 90 days. More on this soon.