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General Discussion

Posted by matsum0t0
matsum0t0
12,520 Points

changing nameservers and revoking ssl certificates

Hey everybody,

I changed nameservers from GoDaddy to Bluehost a couple days ago for a website with an SSL certificate. Being on a different server gives an 'error certificate mis-match'. I don't really need the SSL now and want to revoke it. (this is a wordpress site, workingteachers.org)

Revoking it with GoDaddy is a click of a button but since I pointed the site to BlueHost are there more steps involved? I asked both GoDaddy and BlueHost and they just point fingers at the other host.

When the SSL was set up a couple years ago it all happened automagically. I'm wondering what to expect. Is there anything I'm going to need to do on a code level? I'm affraid of breaking the site and having it become unreachable. I am prepared to have the site down initially, they say 24-72 hours.

I'm flying blind in this area of certificates and need a confidence boost to get me to click the 'revoke' button. Anyone ever deal with a similar situation?

Please and Thank You and Have a Great Day,

M@

1 Answer

Kris Phelps
Kris Phelps
7,609 Points
Kris Phelps
Kris Phelps
7,609 Points

The first step in turning SSL off for your WordPress site is to turn it off in WordPress admin. In your WordPress Admin, go the the Settings > General tab and make sure that both URLs are setup with http:// and not https://.

Once you do that, then the site should route properly. If you're still being redirected to https://workingteachers.org, then clear your browser's cache and type the web address in the address bar as http://workingteachers.org

If you're still being redirected to https://workingteachers.org, the go into your command prompt (if you're on Windows) by going to Start and typing in CMD, then press enter.

This should pull up the command prompt (A black box terminal). In the command prompt, type in ipconfig /flushdns then press enter. Close the command prompt, go back to your browser and try again.

I can tell you right now, when I visit workingteachers.org, it is not encrypted by SSL, so it looks like your WordPress installation is configured properly. After that, you should be able to revoke the SSL certificate without any issues.

Now, I do want to mention this: you can most likely still use the SSL certificate if you wanted to, you just need to install the SSL certificate into your BlueHost cpanel area. When you changed nameservers, you switched from the webhost that had the SSL certificate installed, to BlueHost, who doesn't know you are using an SSL certificate. I just wanted to let you know in case you truly wanted to keep SSL. I hope this helps :-)

matsum0t0
matsum0t0
12,520 Points

Thanks Kris,

We used to take payments but have since changed the business model so we're not asking for sensitive information anymore. I think Bluehost has SiteLock that I still need to configure after I sort out this SSL cert issue anyway, that's why 'the boss' decided to dump the SSL.

You're my new friend, I thank you for your help/suggestions. You have given me the confidence I needed, so here goes nothin'.

Kris Phelps
Kris Phelps
7,609 Points

You're very welcome. I hope the very best. You'll do fine. I'm not saying you won't be uncomfortable, but you'll do just fine :-)