Re-Keying Your SSL Certificate
Re-keying an SSL certificate refers to creating a new private key for your certificate, which is used in the process of encrypting and decrypting data sent from and to your website.
Re-keying is only available to certificates installed on customers' own servers. Certificates installed on any of our services never need to be re-keyed.
By creating a new private key, you invalidate your certificate's old private key; this means you must install your new, re-keyed certificate within 72 hours of re-keying.
You should re-key your SSL certificate when:
- Your server crashes.
- You lose your private key.
- You move your website to a new server.
- You want to change your SSL certificate's signature algorithm to SHA-2. For more information, see Information about Requiring the SHA-2 Hash Function
- You want to change your SSL certificate's issuing organization. For more information, see Using the Right Issuing Organization for Your SSL.
- You change the encryption level of your SSL certificate. For more information, see Why do you require a 2048-bit key for my CSR?
Before You Begin
Before you can re-key your SSL certificate, you must generate a new certificate signing request (CSR) from your Web server. For instructions, see Generating a Certificate Signing Request.
The information in your new CSR must be identical to the information for your existing certificate, i.e. you cannot change the organization's information (although you can change the domain name you're securing). If you need to change your certificate details, you must revoke the certificate in your account, purchase a new SSL credit, and complete the SSL request again.
NOTE: We automatically deactivate the previous certificate when we issue the new, re-keyed certificate. Do not revoke unless you are certain you want to cancel the existing certificate. When you revoke, the SSL credit is canceled and you cannot re-key the certificate.
To Re-Key Your SSL Certificate
- Log in to your Account Manager.
- Click SSL Certificates.
- Next to the certificate you want to re-key, click Launch.
- Click Manage.
- Click Re-Key certificate.
- In the Certificate Signing Request (CSR) field, paste your new CSR, including ----BEGIN NEW CERTIFICATE REQUEST---- and ----END CERTIFICATE REQUEST----.
- Click Save.
Your newly re-keyed certificate is immediately available for download (more info).
We'll remove the old certificate from our system within 72 hours. To ensure continuity of service, you must install the re-keyed certificate immediately (more info).