Enable SSL/HTTPS for a DSS 9.0 Site

Description

This article outlines how to configure your DSS 9.0 site for HTTPS/SSL.

Requirements

• A DSS 9.x site.
• Administrative rights on the Content Management Server.
• A valid SSL certificate.

Step-by-Step

By default, a CMS site is set up to use HTTP. Enabling HTTPS involves the following changes:

• Setting HTTPS bindings for the CMS site within IIS.
• Changing the content store location in web.config so that it reflects HTTPS.
• Enabling URL rewrite to redirect from HTTP to HTTPS.

Configuring HTTPS bindings is a common server administration procedure and is covered in depth on IIS's website. For more information, read Microsoft: How to Set Up SSL on IIS 7.

It's recommended to configure URL Rewrite in IIS to automatically redirect HTTP traffic to HTTPS.

1. Download and install Microsoft Web Platform Installer.
2. On IIS.net, download and install the URL Rewrite extension.
3. Open your site's web.config and locate the system.webServer node. This is where to insert the code that will redirect HTTP to HTTPS. Download this example XML and add it to web.config.
4. Save web.config.

With the URL Rewrite extension installed, it's also possible to configure rewrite rules directly in IIS.

Additional Information

Before upgrading an SSL/HTTP-enabled DSS 9.0 site, you should consider the following:

• On DSS 9.0 upgrades, URL rewrite rules—and all other custom configurations—are removed from web.config. It's a good idea to keep a backup of a site's web.config to prevent having to reconfigure the site after every upgrade.
• When HTTPS is enabled, errors can occur when running the upgrade wizard. Before running the upgrade wizard, besure to change the contentStoreLocation path back to HTTP.
• Not all implementations support HTTPS out of the box. Before forcing HTTPS it is important to check the site for Mixed Content errors. This will cause certain content to not render the page or the "Lock" to not be fully Green in the browser. The following article outlines how to detect and resolve these issues in the HTML Markup - web.dev: What is Mixed Content?