Setting up SSL with Bitnami

SSL can be configured with Bitnami. This is necessary to have secured traffic on the main website projectreclass.org

Whether you've created a new wordpress site from scratch via the guide from our friend Hiro who runs awsnewbies. Or you've just made a new AMI from our existing projectreclass.org SSL is a must. It is necessary to securely send data over HTTPS rather than HTTP, not only is it best practice but it improves our visibility and our reputation

If you are migrating or standing up a new image, and are utilizing an Elastic IP the certificate will have already been created and you won't need to recreate it.

Bitnami allows us to configure SSL utilizing Let's Encrypt with their built in tool bncert-tool. Configuring SSL is as easy as running this tool.

Step 1: Open your terminal and SSH into your server

sudo ssh -i my-key.pem bitnami@my.server's.ip.address

Ensure you're in the same directory as your "my-key.pem" replace "my.server's.ip.address" with the Server's public IP address

Step 2: Run the bncert-tool

Access the tool by utilizing the absolute path

sudo /opt/bitnami/bncert-tool

Step 3: Configure the root domain and the subdomain "www."

When prompted enter the following

projectreclass.org www.projectreclass.org

Step 4: HTTP redirection to HTTPS

The next step will ask if you'd like to forward http requests to https. The answer is yes type y and press Enter

Step 5: Domain vs Subdomain redirect

This next portion will ask if you'd like non-www to redirect to www and vice versa. You can only say yes to one of these options. The decision is yours. I like to redirect www requests to non-www domain. This will result in the following behavior.

If a user types www.projectreclass.org the domain will redirect to projectreclass.org If you'd like you can enable the opposite behavior during this step.

Step 6: Just say Yes!

Bitnami will then tell you it needs to restart the server for the changes to take effect it should only bring the site down for a minute or so. Once it's brought back up you'll see the SSL confirmation you're seeking. Bitnami will also ask for a email address to reference, in this case the address is: admin@projectreclass.org

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