How to Setup SSL HTTPS on a Joomla Website

How to Setup SSL HTTPS on a Joomla Website

Knowing how to setup SSL HTTPS on a Joomla website will protect your website from interception and will also keep your online users safe. This is important especially if you are managing an ecommerce website, which obviously needs protection from third party entities that try to intercept information that online users send through your website.

If you have already installed your SSL Certificate to your server, follow the tips below. But if you haven’t purchased an SSL Certificate yet, go to GoDaddy or Symantec. You can get the best deals on SSL Certificates on these two well-established certificate authorities.

You should also contact your hosting provider and ask them about SSL Certificate installation if you are not familiar with it or have no idea how to go about it. They will make things a lot easier for you when you relay your issue so make sure to ask for assistance from your server.

Godaddy is a great option for reliable, cheap SSL certs.  Get the best price.

Setting Up Your Joomla Website to Use SSL Certificate

Take note of the instructions below to make sure that you are doing them properly:

  • Set the Force SSL option on your Joomla site.

To make your Joomla site be forced to use HTTPS on all its connections, enable the Force SSL option. You can do this by going to your account’s ‘Global Configuration’ section and click on the ‘Server’ tab. You will see the option on how you can propagate the HTTPS protocol on your site.

Choose ‘Entire Site’ on the dropdown menu so that your administration connection as well as the front end of your site will be forced to use HTTPS.

  • Module Manager

If you want login forms on your website to be protected with SSL, you need to use Joomla’s module manager. You just need to go to the ‘Module Manager’ and enable ‘Encrypt Login Form’ by ticking the ‘Yes’ option.

This will encrypt all the information that will come through your site’s form, which will ensure that our user’s information is safe.

You should also enable ‘Enable SSL for sensitive areas’ on the ‘Shop’ tab of your Virtuemart configuration.

  • Configure your configuration.php file and .htaccess file.

Now, to force your entire website to be redirected to the HTTPS links, you need to update your configuration.php file and .htaccess file. These will ensure that the 301 redirect to HTTPS links will be successful.

Replace this:

var $live_site =”;

With the line below on your configuration.php file:

var $live_site = ‘https://www.your-site.com’;

As for your .htaccess file, add this code to your file to ensure that your entire website’s links are redirected to the HTTPS protocol:

RewriteEngine On

RewriteCond %{HTTPS} off

RewriteRule (.*) https://%{HTTP_HOST}%{REQUEST_URI}

Make sure that you add this code at the end or bottom of your .htaccess file.

The only problem that you will face when you decide to setup SSL HTTPS on your Joomla site is that your website may work slower. This is due to the 301 redirection of the link to use the HTTPS protocol and also to protect all your connections. This is worth it, nonetheless, especially if you have an ecommerce site to protect.

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