Customizing Your SSL Certificate
  • 1 Minute to read
  • Dark
    Light

Customizing Your SSL Certificate

  • Dark
    Light

Article summary

Your portal can be accessed over a secure (HTTPS) connection. This is available to all accounts at no extra charge by using your specified <keyword>.smarteru.com. Another option is to have SmarterU host the SSL certificate that you've purchased; contact our Success Desk for details.

SmarterU's custom SSL certificate is delivered through SNI (Server Name Indication). While this technology is not new, it requires your users to use a supported browser. If your user uses an unsupported browser, it will result in a certificate mismatch warning. Please be aware of this limitation before choosing this option as we won't be able to do anything to fix unsupported browsers. 

While SmarterU provides every account with the ability to log in over a secure, encrypted connection (e.g., https://yourkeyword.smarteru.com), some organizations may also want to have a custom-branded domain connection such as https://training.yourdomain.com. If you have a custom-branded URL from your provider, we can host your SSL certificate at no cost. Contact our Success Desk for details.

Customizing Your SSL Certificate

Please contact our Success Desk before sending your files so we can ensure a secure file sharing method is set up.

To use the custom SSL certificate option:

  1. Purchase an SSL certificate using 2048 bit encryption from a reputable root authority.
If you don't currently have an SSL certificate, you'll need to purchase one from a third-party certificate provider. Part of this process requires creating a CSR (Certificate Signing Request) that's submitted to the certificate provider. For instructions on how to create a CSR, refer to Generating a Certificate Signing Request. You will need to provide the private key that is generated when creating your CSR, along with the PFX file.
  1. Modify your DNS A record to use the IP address 35.182.194.252.
  2. Before sending your files, contact our Success Desk to set up a secure file sharing method.

Technical Note

Our custom certificates will operate through SNI technology. This is technology which allows a single IP address to be used across multiple SSL certificates. While this technology is not new, it is not supported by older browsers. 

The following browsers are known to NOT support SNI:

  • Android 2.3.7
  • IE8/XP
  • Java 6 based browsers

If someone attempts to access your site pages (including the login page) with one of these old or incompatible browsers, they will either receive a browser security warning (for instance “Cipher suite mismatch”), or they will not work at all.


Was this article helpful?