Shout out for Chillidog Hosting

RapidWeaver Classic
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Just a quick note of thanks to Greg at Chillidog Hosting. A year ago, I created a TMS site for a client that would not run on their current host’s platform (with over 2,000 calls, it exceeded the number allowed). So, I moved them over to a Frankfurter account with Chillidog Hosting. All has been great since.

Over the weekend, I moved another of their sites from a host in Canada that they’ve long been with to the same Chillidog plan (no extra money) so that I’d have total control over the cPanel (databases and email) instead of the FPT privileges I had (the hosting plan was maintained by a previous web designer, who only gave me FTP rights). I then reached out to Greg to find out how much it would cost to install an SSL Certificate. Imagine my surprise when he said “NOTHING - SSL certificates can now be installed for free via the Control Panel.” It was literally one click, and then an hour or so cleaning up the http calls for my warehoused images. BOOM!

So, along with the great service Greg provides, this is just another reason to consider Chillidog for your hosting needs. To contrast, GoDaddy charges $150/year to secure five sites…Chillidog charges zero.

Oh, and yes - the SSL turns the browser bar green!

4 Likes
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@dave - I’ve got some sites with CDog, is there a step-by-step anywhere that explains the process of installing the certificate?

Thanks

Rob

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Hi @robbeattie The process could not have been easier. In your control panel, look for “Let’s encrypt item” Click it and follow the directions (it will take about 30 seconds, lol). The second part involves your site…anything referenced from within your site will need to be with https, not http. So, if you have warehoused images, PDFs, etc., you most likely have the URL set as http://example.com/xxxxxxxx You’ll need to update them to https://example.com/xxxxxxxx (or, just /xxxxxxxx - although the items won’t preview if you use this method). You’ll know everything is correct when you preview each page in a browser. Safari will show you the padlock, Chrome will show you the padlock in green. If you’re not seeing this, then click on the developer tools and then Show Error Console. You’ll get a list of items that need to be changed to https.

Copying Greg @barchard in case he’d like to add anything.

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I’ve been meaning to take the plunge and go https. Glad it is easy. Did you need to do anything with the theme or stacks or did they just work ‘within’ SSL OK?
Most of mine is Foundation and other odd bits.

Nigel

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PS. Yes Greg and Chillidog are the best.

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They should just work. However, I have at least one map stack where choosing a built-in color marker throws an error. Unbelievably, the marker is coming from an http URL owned by none other than Google. I’m guessing they also have an https url that could be accessed, but the developer hasn’t updated his stack. I got around it by using my own location pin rather than the one offered in the map stack.

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Nope, that’s pretty good. I had a blog post on this but the Ghost app I was using/trying is broken. sigh time to re-set things up :slight_smile:

@robbeattie no guide at the moment, but working to re-do all of my documentation on the hosting side of things.

-greg

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Cheers. Will be converting to SSL as a winter project.

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Hi @dave, I have a related question.

I’ve installed the certificate and if I type https://www.theblackpike.com into Safari then it comes up fine, padlock and all.

But if I type www.theblackpike.com - which is what I’d expect a visitor to type - then the padlock doesn’t appear. There’s obviously a step I haven’t completed?

Any advice appreciated.

Thanks

Rob

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Hi @robbeattie It looks like your favicon is not being found - perhaps that’s causing the error? I’ve copied @barchard for his expertise. Your site looks great, by the way!

screenshot_1499.png939×536 193 KB

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browsers default to http://, not https://. you will need to force a redirection from http to https. I recommend using a .htaccess file:

RewriteEngine On 
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^example\.com [NC]
RewriteCond %{SERVER_PORT} 80 
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ https://www.example.com/$1 [R,L]
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Not knowing much about how this code works, I’ve been using the following. Would you recommend I switch it?

RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTPS} off
RewriteRule (.*) https://%{HTTP_HOST}%{REQUEST_URI}

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if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it :stuck_out_tongue:

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So to be clear, for my site I’d open the .htaccess file and change this to:

RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^theblackpike.com [NC]
RewriteCond %{SERVER_PORT} 80
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ https://www.theblackpike.com/$1 [R,L]

Does it have to go anywhere in particular - at the top or the end?

Thanks

Rob

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@dave - thanks for the kind words about the site. I’m re-building it in Foundation and it’s been fun so far.

Rob

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at the top would be preferable and make the most sense.

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It’s not working for me I’m afraid. I’ll raise a support ticket because this would be really useful for me to understand going forward.

Thanks to both.

Rob

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If you haven’t already, please try the code I posted above too…I’m using it successfully on a site hosted by Chillidog. Also, if you haven’t done so, please either place a favicon in the right directory or remove that line from your index file.

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Here is one that should work as well:
RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{SERVER_PORT} 80
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ https://www.example.com/$1 [R,L]

Change example to your site.

.htacess files can be a bear to test so here is a simple tester site:
http://htaccess.madewithlove.be

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This rule is working as well - it not only forces https, but also strips out www

 RewriteCond %{HTTPS} off
 RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^www\.(.+)$ [NC]
 RewriteRule .* https://%1%{REQUEST_URI} [R=301,L]
 RewriteCond %{HTTPS} off
 RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} !^www\. [NC]
 RewriteRule .* https://%{HTTP_HOST}%{REQUEST_URI} [R=301,L]
 RewriteCond %{HTTPS} on
 RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^www\.(.+)$ [NC]
 RewriteRule .* https://%1%{REQUEST_URI} [R=301,L]
1 Like