MyHomeServer Tutorials – Purchasing and Installing a Secure Certificate for your HP MediaSmart Server
If you are one of those users that are getting the “Domain Mismatch” error or are bothered by the SSL Certificate warnings on your Windows Home Server, you are not alone. Many MediaSmart home server users have been asking questions about SSL warnings and secure certificates using their own domain name. This tutorial will guide you through the process of obtaining a secure SSL certificate for a custom domain name and installing that certificate on the Windows Home Server.
We have written a three other documents that support this tutorial and they should be read BEFORE continuing. It’s critical that you follow these in order since in order to generate a CSR you must already have a domain name selected.
- EXPORTING AND REMOVING YOUR SECURE CERTIFICATE
- REGISTERING YOUR OWN DOMAIN NAME WITH TZO DDNS
- GENERATING A CSR – CERTIFICATE SIGNING REQUEST
The document on exporting a secure certificate is only if you currently are using the MSLIVE “homeserver.com” domain and want to preserve your certificate for later use – completely optional. The Generating a CSR document is a must read since this has to be done in order to obtain a certificate. In order to get your own domain name such as “YourFamilyName.com” with the HP MediaSmart server, you must select the HP CUSTOM domain under remote access in the Windows Home Server console. This is where the domain name registration tutorial will come in handy. At this time of writing, you cannot obtain a secure certificate for any of the HP Personal domains.
A Note on obtaining your own custom SSL Certificate - In this tutorial we show you how to obtain your own SSL certificate for your own private domain name. In order to give peace of mind to our readers, we will show you how to obtain a 90 day trial SSL certificate from Comodo at NO COST! For those that don’t know of Comodo, they are the #2 in market share for SSL certificates preceded only by Verisign and it’s recent acquisitions. This allows you to test out your server and make sure everything works properly before you purchase the certificate. If you don’t like it, remove it, no credit card involved, no high pressure sales…Bonus! If you like it, purchase the certificate before it expires in 90 days.
STEP 1 – Launch your web browser - connect to Comodo’s SSL site and you will see a screen similar to the one shown below. Click the GET IT FREE NOW button as shown circled below.
Using the Comodo INSTANTSSL site to obtain a free SSL cert for use in the MediaSmart Server
STEP 2 – Paste in your CSR - Don’t know how to generate a CSR? See this document. Remote Desktop into your server and open the text file that has your CSR. Select the whole file (Ctrl-A) and then copy this to the clipboard (CRTL-C). Minimize the Remote Desktop session and then go back to the Comodo CSR request page in your browser. Click within the text box and hit paste (CTRL-V). You should see your CSR appear in the box as shown in our screenshot below. Select IIS 5.X as the software you are using and add/remove other options and then click NEXT
Using the Comodo INSTANTSSL site to obtain a free SSL cert for use in the MediaSmart Server
STEP 3 – Select the Email address - Select the Email address to use to send the domain name control validation email. You must be able to receive this email in order to obtain your secure certificate.
Using the Comodo INSTANTSSL site to obtain a free SSL cert for use in the MediaSmart Server
STEP 4 – Enter your contact information - Enter your contact info, select your admin username and password and review the Comodo agreement and then select AGREE AND CONTINUE button as shown.
Using the Comodo INSTANTSSL site to obtain a free SSL cert for use in the MediaSmart Server
STEP 5 – Email Validation email - You should see a screen similar to the one below once you have completed all the details in step 4. Comodo has sent an email to the address you selected in step 3. Check your Email and CLICK ON THE URL in the email to validate your email address and ownership of the domain.
Using the Comodo INSTANTSSL site to obtain a free SSL cert for use in the MediaSmart Server
STEP 6 – Enter your Email Validation number - Once you receive the email validation from Comodo, you need to verify the email was received. Click on the validation URL and this will launch your browser and show a screen similar to the one shown below. Type in or Paste in your validation code and click NEXT
Using the Comodo INSTANTSSL site to obtain a free SSL cert for use in the MediaSmart Server
STEP 7 – Enter your Email Validation number - Once you receive the email validation from Comodo, you need to verify the email was received. Click on the validation URL and this will launch your browser and show a screen similar to the one shown below. Type in or Paste in your validation code and click NEXT. You can then close this window and check your email again. Your certificate will be emailed to you.
Using the Comodo INSTANTSSL site to obtain a free SSL cert for use in the MediaSmart Server
STEP 8 – Check your Email and extract your certifcate from Email - You should now have received the email that contains your secure certificate from Comodo. The email contains a Zip file with the secure certificate within the zip file. Save the attachment to your desktop , open the zip and extract the .cer file to your desktop.
STEP 9 – Remote Desktop into your Server - You should now remote desktop into the Windows Home Server and click START, Then hit RUN and type in “c:\” (without the quotes) and hit enter. This should pop up a dialog box that shows the contents of the C Drive. Minimize the remote desktop session, go back to your desktop on the PC and highlight the .CER certificate file. Right click and hit COPY. Switch back to your remote desktop session, click in the C:\ window and Right click and hit PASTE. This will paste the .CER certificate file into your C:\
STEP 10 – Going into the Internet Information Services (IIS) Manager – Since you are already logged into the desktop of the MediaSmart server, go to the IIS Manager by clicking the Start button, Administrative tools, Internet Information Services Manager. You will then see the screenshot shown below. Your screen may look slightly different, but will have the “DEFAULT WEBSITE” which is what we want to edit.
Getting to the Internet Information Services Manager to install the certificate
STEP 11 – Getting to the IIS Properties – You now want to put your mouse over the default website and right-click and select properties as shown in the screenshot below. This will bring you into the website properties of the default website to edit the ports.
Hovering over the default website and selecting properties brings up the website settings
STEP 12 – Directory Security – You will now see the screenshot shown below – this is the main IIS Default Web Site properties. Click on the DIRECTORY SECURITY tab in the upper left corner.
IIS Default Website Properties Dialog box
STEP 13 – Directory Security – This screen is the Directory Security properties of the Default Web Site. Click on the SEERVER CERTIFICATE button as shown circled in red below.
IIS Default Website Properties – Directory Security Dialog box
STEP 14 – Certificate Wizard – This screen is the Web Server Certificate Wizard. Click Next to continue.
IIS Web Server Certificate Wizard Dialog box
STEP 15 – Importing a new Certificate using the Wizard – Go back to the Web Site properties under Directory security and select SERVER CERTIFICATE to get back into the Certificate Wizard. You now want to select alling this certificate. Click Next to continue.
IIS Web Server Certificate Wizard Dialog box – Process and install a new certificate
STEP 16 – Importing a new Certificate using the Wizard – Click the browser button and select the certificate ( a .CER file) that you moved over to the C:\ drive earlier. Point to this file and click Next. Verify this is the certificate you want and then select NEXT again to install this certificate and end the wizard.
IIS Web Server Certificate Wizard Dialog box – Adding a new certificate to your server
That’s it, you are done! Call a friend or family member and have them try out your new domain name. You should no longer get any secure certificate warning. If you have problems with the certificates installing, double check that you properly copied the certificate file over to your Windows Home Server and step through the process again.
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