We at HostArmada provide our clients with a completely free SSL certificate for as long as they are hosted on our servers. Sectigo issues the SSL certificates we install for our users, and this is the default AutoSSL provider officially supported by cPanel. 

However, some clients prefer to use their own third-party issued SSL certificates. To make this possible, the cPanel service provides a feature called “SSL/TLS” which offers to the customer all the tools needed for the unconditional and complete management of SSL certificates. 

Before you can install your brand new SSL certificate on your account with us, you will need to purchase it. Typically the process of purchasing SSL certificates is handled by the SSL Certificate Vendor(Certificate Authority or CA) of choice. However, there is a piece of information the vendor needs before they can issue and supply your SSL Certificate. This piece of information is the so-called Certificate Signing Request or in short CSR. To be able to provide it to your SSL Vendor, you will need to generate the CSR on your Web Hosting Server where the SSL will be installed after issued or in this case - on your Web Hosting Account with HostArmada. 

Generating CSR for new SSL certificate

Please go over the steps below to understand the process of generating a CSR on a cPanel server:

• Please log in to your cPanel.
• Under the "Security" section, you will see the "SSL/TLS" functionality icon. Please click on it.

• On the new page, you will see four links available there. Please click on the second one -  "Generate, view, or delete SSL certificate signing requests." located under the "Certificate Signing Requests (CSR)" label.

• When you land on the "Signing Request Generation" page, you will have to fill out the following information in the text fields and dropdown menus:
  • Key - Leave this at its default 2048 bit position.
  • Domains - Enter your domain name here.
  • City - Enter your city of residence
  • State - Enter your state.
  • Country - Select your country from the dropdown.
  • Company - Select your company. If you do not have a company, enter your domain name.
  • Company Division - this is optional.
  • Email - Enter the email address where you wish to receive the SSL confirmation. Usually, this will be [email protected] or [email protected]. You should consult with your SSL vendor just in case in regards to your email.
  • Passphrase - This is optional unless your SSL vendor strictly requests a passphrase.
  • Description - This field is optional.
• When done, please press the "Generate" button located at the bottom of the page.

• The above action will send you to a page containing the CSR. The snippet of code you need will be located under the "Encoded Certificate Signing Request" label. Please copy this, as you will need to provide it to your SSL vendor. Just in case, please copy and save the “Encoded Key” also known as “Private Key” since you will need it when installing the SSL Certificate.

Once the CSR is generated and you have submitted it to your SSL vendor, they will give you an archive, containing the needed components to install the SSL Certificate - the Certificate itself and the CA Bundle. 

With that, all the components needed for the installation of the SSL Certificate are gathered and you can move forward with the installation of the SSL certificate. We have reviewed the installation process in our article within this knowledgebase category - How to install an existing SSL Certificate on my Web Hosting Account.

In case you are experiencing any issues with the CSR generation procedure outlined above or yоu would like our Technical Support Team to generate the CSR for you, please feel free to submit a ticket via your HostArmada Client Area.