How to Install Let’s Encrypt Free SSL on NameCheap Shared Hosting

Last year, I heard about Let’s Encrypts free SSL. But I was using WordPress.com to host my website. So I already had SSL on my site. So I did not pay much attention to it.

From 2017, I am quite serious about my site and have a plan to write regularly on my blog. I have a “bad reputation” for coming up with a new idea every morning. So yesterday I installed the free SSL certificate on my shared hosting and saved 10 USD!

So here’s how I did it.

1. Searched for “Free SSL” on google. (I forgot the name Let’s Encrypt ? ).
2. Then I found a couple of organizations and the name “Let’s Encrypt” clicked in my head! Because my boss mentioned this name earlier.
3. Then I searched again “Let’s encrypt on a shared hosting” and opened another tab to check if NameCheap has any built-in support for Let’s Encrypt. So I searched again.
4. Then I found this article: How To Install Free SSL From Let’s Encrypt On Shared Hosting
5. Opened up the terminal on my MacBook and wrote
   ssh -p 21098 myUserName@sekander.pro
Here  -p 20198 is the port number for shell access. I got the port number from NameCheap’s Support doc.
6. Then I used my cPanel password as the shell password.

   But the terminal told me that I do not have shell access enabled on my hosting. So I contacted NameCheap support via live chat.

7. So I logged in again and ran the commands following commands

   git clone https://github.com/kelunik/acme-client

   cd acme-client

   php -r "copy('https://getcomposer.org/installer', 'composer-setup.php');"; php composer-setup.php; php -r "unlink('composer-setup.php');"; php composer.phar install --no-dev

   php bin/acme setup --server letsencrypt --email your@email.com

   php bin/acme issue --domains yourdomain.com:www.youdomain.com --path /home/x123011738/public_html:/home/x123011738/public_html --server letsencrypt

   Requesting certificate ...
   Successfully issued certificate.
   See /home/x123011738/acme-client/data/certs/acme-v01.api.letsencrypt.org.directory/yourdomain.com

   cd /home/x123011738/acme-client/data/certs/acme-v01.api.letsencrypt.org.directory/yourdomain.com

   Then I copied the contents of the fullchain and key file using the commands below and saved on my desktop with the same name.

   cat fullchain.pem

   cat key.pem

8. Then, I logged into the cPanel of my site and found the option to manage SSL Certificates. I selected the domain and uploaded the files I have made on my desktop.If your site has static HTML files, then you’re done till here. But mine is a WordPress powered site. So I had to change the URL structure from wp-admin → Settings → General. I have changed http://sekander.pro to https://sekanderb.com and then saved the settings.
9. But I was not happy yet. Because I found the SSL certificate on the single posts and pages. But it was not working on the homepage ?
10. So I had to google again “Setup SSL WordPress” and found that I need to paste something in my .htaccess file!
11. I logged in to the cPanel again and good lord! There’s no .htacess file on the hosting root! How’s this possible! How can a WordPress site run without a .htacess file!
    Then my colleague, who luckily works on the Dokan plugin support team, told me that it could be hidden. So I enabled showing hidden files and voila! The file was there with hefty lines of rewrite rules and allowing file types to uploading.
12. I pasted the following lines at the very end of the .htacess file

    <IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
    RewriteEngine On
    RewriteCond %{SERVER_PORT} 80
    RewriteRule ^(.*)$ https://www.yoursite.com/$1 [R,L]
    </IfModule>

    This article has more detailed information: How to Add SSL and HTTPS in WordPress

    It helped me to redirect the traffic with http to redirect to https. So now I can see the green https on the home page ?

13. I have setup a cron job to renew the SSL certificate every month.

This is all I have done to activate SSL on this site. If you get confused or need any clarification from me, feel free to comment below 🙂