Knowledge Base

How to allow HTTPS and configure SSL certificate on domain in Plesk which has Hosting Type set as Forwarding?

Question

How to allow HTTPS and configure an SSL certificate on a domain in Plesk which has Hosting Type set as Forwarding in Domains > example.com > Hosting Settings?

Answer

The feature of assigning a certificate to domain with type forwarding is implemented in Plesk Obsidian 18.0.26
The feature to secure forwarding domains with Let’s Encrypt certificate is implemented in SSL It! 1.5.0.
It works for Plesk Obsidian on Linux with the Let’s Encrypt extension version 2.11 and later.

Click on a section to expand

For other versions, check the steps:

Log in to Plesk.
Navigate to the Domains > example.com > SSL/TLS Certificates where example.com is a forwarding domain.
On the SSL/TLS Certificates page, add your certificate:
- If an SSL certificate is stored in a single *.crt file:
  
  Click Browse… to select a certificate file. Then click Upload Certificate.
- If an SSL certificate is stored in the form of *.key and *.crt files:
  
  Click Add SSL/TLS Certificate and scroll down to the Upload the certificate files section and upload these files. If both the certificate and the private key parts of your certificate are contained in a *.pem file (you can check it by opening the *.pem file in any text editor), just upload it twice, both as the private key and the certificate. Click Upload Certificate once finished.
- If an SSL certificate is stored as a text:
  
  Click Add SSL/TLS Certificate and scroll down to the Upload the certificate as text section. There, paste the certificate and the private key parts into the corresponding fields. Click Upload Certificate when finished.
Once the certificate is created, go to Domains > example.com > Hosting Settings and:
- enable SSL support.
- select the SSL that was just created and click OK.

Alternatively, the following workaround may be used: configure the forwarding type manually on a domain with Website hosting and set up the certificate.

For Linux

Log into Plesk.
Change the Hosting type of the domain to Website hosting in Domains > example.com > Hosting Settings.
Go to Domains > example.com > Apache & nginx Settings.
Add the following directives to both fields Additional directives for HTTP and Additional directives for HTTPS:
```
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ https://example.net/$1 [L,R=301,NC]
```
Note: Replace https://example.net/ with the desired target location. In case 302 redirect is required, change 301 to 302.

OR

Add the following directives to the field Additional nginx directives, if it is present:
```
return 301 $scheme://example.net$request_uri;
```
Note: The directives above can only be modified by Plesk Administrator. In case they are absent, contact service provider and ask to apply this article.
In case the issue persists, check in Hosting settings that SSL/TLS support option is enabled for the domain.

For Windows

Log into Plesk.
Go to Domains > example.com > File Manager.
Open the file web.config and add the following content right below the <system.webServer> declaration:
```
<httpRedirect enabled="true" destination="https://example.net/" httpResponseStatus…
```