What is a multi-domain or UC/SAN SSL certificate?
Multi-domain certificates are SSL certificates that allow you to secure multiple, potentially unrelated domains with a single certificate. This includes UCC/SAN certificates and wildcard certificates. Unified Communications/Subject Alternate Name (UC/SAN) Certificates are SSL certificates that allow you to specify a list of hostnames that the same certificate protects.
What is a wildcard SSL certificate?
A wildcard certificate allows you to install the same certificate on any number of subdomains if they share an IP address. You can apply a wildcard certificate to services in WHM’s Manage Service SSL Certificates interface (Home >> Service Configuration >> Manage Service SSL Certificates).
- For example, if you have a wildcard certificate for
*.example.com
, you can use it to securely connect to
mail.example.com
and
www.example.com
, but not to
example.com
.
- The
root
user may install a wildcard certificate on a collection of subdomains that are associated with a single root domain on multiple IP addresses. If multiple IP addresses are used, a user on the server must not own the
root
domain.
What is the difference between a wildcard and a webserver certificate?
Webserver certificates only allow you to secure a single domain. Wildcard certificates allow you to secure a domain and an unlimited number of subdomains. For example, if you wish to secure
store.example.com
and
blog.example.com
, you can use a single wildcard certificate to do so. However, each subdomain will require its own dedicated IP address.