How do you secure pages using SSL?

[aaron_mason]

Hello,

I want the login and checkout pages of my website to be secure using https. Does anyone know how this is achieved? Is is as simple as linking to 'https://www.domain.com/login.php' with the 's' added? Do I need to purchase a certificate?

I do not know much in this area. I anyone could point me in the right direction I would be very grateful. I do not know where to start.

Thanks

[linFox]

Without any action on your part, you can access your files via SSL from https://secure.hostmonster.com/~username/ (eg. https://secure.hostmonster.com/~username/login.php), where username is your Unix (login) username.
If you want your own domain name to be secured (https://www.mydomain.com/), you will first need to purchase a dedicated IP, which is $US30 a year, then get an SSL certificate (price depends on where you get it from; there are free distributors around, I don't know of any URLs to them though).

[r2b2]

Bear in mind that, I believe, SSL is only an option for your primary domain (i.e. addon domains can't have SSL). (At least that is what this (http://helpdesk.hostmonster.com/kb/index.php?x=&mod_id=2&id=229) page says)

[aaron_mason]

Thank you.

I will try it out today (when I can get access to my site - there is something wrong today)