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I have contacted my hosting provider (GoDaddy.com) about how to implement self-signed SSL certificate in my server. Their support team replied to me that they don't provide this for shared hosting.

Is self-signed SSL certificates using OpenSSL not allowed by any shared hosting providers?

What might be the reason behind that?

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GoDaddy does not support installing self-signed SSL certificates in shared web hosting accounts, as can be confirmed from this thread: Does shared hosting support installing self-signed certificates?.

GoDaddy's shared web hosting accounts use a custom control panel (not cPanel, Plesk, etc...) that doesn't provide the option to install SSL certificates. They need to be provisioned by their SSL department and installed on a shared web hosting account with a dedicated IP address. When you order an SSL with them, they'll convert your shared web hosting account from using a shared IP address to using a dedicated IP address.

If you upgrade your shared hosting account to a VPS or dedicated server, you will be able to use a self-signed SSL certificate (either with cPanel or Plesk as the control panel, or manually since you'll have root access).

It is possible to add a self-signed SSL to a shared web hosting account with a dedicated IP address, but unfortunately not at most web hosting companies that use custom control panels (as many larger ones do to save license fees, streamline options for users, etc...).

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  • Thank you. It will good idea if shared hosting providers provide a Self Signed SSL, if security is not too much issue. I have described my use case in other answer's comment. – Justin John Aug 29 '13 at 10:56
  • @JustinJohn It's unfortunately not in the interest of most shared hosting providers to support self-signed SSL certificates because they require a dedicated IP to be added, and selling SSLs helps to offset the cost of adding and configuring them. – dan♦ Sep 15 '13 at 8:03
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Generally no they are not and they are not recommended either to be used in general. The reason is that they can't be validated or reasonably confirmed to be valid. There is no certificate authority that can vouch for it, such as Verisign, GeoTrust, or even GoDaddy itself. The trust attributed to a certificate is mainly who has vouched for it and how it was verified or issued. Self signed, they only have your word for it, anyone can create an SSL that says anything.

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  • I created a small facebook app game hosted in my server. But when Facebook in secure connection needs SSL, otherwise throws an error. Buying a SSL for non profitable FB App like it not suits to my economic situation. So I explored self signed SSL certificates. Being no great deal of data are exchanged between user and server, I think Self Signed SSL is good idea and have no problems on security. – Justin John Aug 29 '13 at 10:42
  • @JustinJohn, I completely understand where you are coming from and agree. In a perfect world, that would be acceptable and should be good enough but unfortunately with ever increasing abuses of SSL certificates by bad people and in combination with man in the middle attacks, it has become nearly impossible. A lot of hosts however will give you a free shared SSL certificate and in many cases even 1 dedicated SSL for free, I know my host of over two decades 1&1 does. Have you considered maybe getting a better host than GoDaddy? They are stingy with amenities. Check it out (GuardianWeb.us) – GµårÐïåñ Aug 29 '13 at 17:44

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