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Tutorial: Configure Apache Web Server on Amazon Linux to Use SSL/TLS

Secure Sockets Layer/Transport Layer Security (SSL/TLS) creates an encrypted channel between a web server and web client that protects data in transit from being eavesdropped on. This tutorial explains how to add support manually for SSL/TLS on a single instance of Amazon Linux running Apache web server. The AWS Certificate Manager, not discussed here, is a good option if you plan to offer commercial-grade services.

Note

For historical reasons, web encryption is often referred to simply as SSL. While web browsers still support SSL, its successor protocol TLS is considered to be less vulnerable to attack. Amazon Linux disables all versions of SSL by default and recommends disabling TLS version 1.0, as described below. Only TLS 1.1 and 1.2 may be safely enabled. For more information about the updated encryption standard, see RFC 7568.

Important

These procedures are intended for use with Amazon Linux. If you are trying to set up a LAMP web server on an instance of a different distribution, this tutorial will not work for you. For information about LAMP web servers on Ubuntu, go to the Ubuntu community documentation ApacheMySQLPHP topic. For information about Red Hat Enterprise Linux, go to the Customer Portal topic Web Servers.

Google recently announced that forms on web pages over HTTP will be marked as ‘not secure’ in Chrome starting this month. Columnist Fili Wiese believes this presents a good opportunity to make the switch to HTTPS — and that webmasters can take advantage of this switch to implement other SEO improvements.

Most SEOs have heard by now that moving web pages with forms to HTTPS is necessary to avoid being shown as “not secure” in Chrome 62. Moving to HTTPS is a good step to take for a number of reasons, but there is also an unique SEO opportunity which is often overlooked — an opportunity that can significantly help your website with its SEO rankings, if done properly.

So, what is the opportunity? Moving to HTTPS will encourage Googlebot to recrawl most of your URLs. Googlebot has its own mechanism for determining and prioritizing which URLs to recrawl; however, when Googlebot detects a move to HTTPS, it tends to temporarily increase the crawl rate in an attempt to crawl as many URLs as possible within a short time frame. As such, this is a unique, one-time opportunity to improve your overall website’s signals in the Google Index.

Crawl budget

Most sites have a certain crawl rate, based on a number of factors such as page speed, internal linking, external linking and popularity. For larger websites (i.e., those with more than 100,000 URLs), this often means that it can take a while before Googlebot picks up on new SEO signals.

What Is HSTS?

HTTP Strict Transport Security (HSTS) is a web security policy that ensures a user will always connect via an encrypted HTTPS channel to a website after the initial connection to that site. If the user then tries to connect to http://gmail.com, for example, the browser will automatically switch to https://gmail.com before sending out the request to Google.

Once the HSTS response header is received by the browser on the first connection, the user can no longer connect to that site using HTTP, which means any downgrade attacks (from HTTPS to HTTP) will also be prevented.

However, because HSTS still normally needs that first connection before it can be enabled in the browser for a given website, a small window of opportunity for an attacker can still exist to launch a man-in-the-middle attack against someone visiting a certain website.

This can be fixed for certain websites, if they are included in the HSTS preload list in the major browsers. Then, the browsers will be able to enforce HTTPS encryption from the very first connection.

WooCommerce is one of the most popular eCommerce WordPress plugins which you can use to create your online shop. The plugin brings in all the important and must have features for an eCommerce site which make the process really easy.

However, to make the plugin work perfectly, you will need a WooCommerce compatible theme. Once you select your theme, just install the WooCommerce plugin and create your online shop.

WooCommerce is available with a large number of extensions and is an extremely popular WordPress based e-commerce plugin. Listed below are some of the best-paid WooCommerce plugins. An extension is given so that the readers can have a close look and make up their mind accordingly.

Best WooCommerce Plugins

WooCommerce Smart Orders

This simple plugin will enhance the order process of your WooCommerce site to a great extent. As we know the default order process of WooCommerce plugin is really simple and missing a few important modern requirements.

This plugin brings in some amazing features such as the option to enable or disable additional columns, reorder option on the order page, option to combine more than one order, custom order status and more.

The browsers are done asking politely—time to migrate to HTTPS.

For all the websites out there that are still using HTTP, we want to talk about the importance of providing secure connections to your website by migrating to HTTPS before Google Chrome gives you an ugly surprise by slapping a “not secure” label next to your URL in its address bar.

You likely have heard about HTTPS, which is the secure version of HTTP (the internet communication protocol that is used to “talk” to websites). You may even know why it’s important, but think that it does not apply to your site. We are here to tell you that in 2017, HTTPS is going to be a requirement for every website on the internet. No exceptions.

If you have not been keeping up with developments in web standards, you may have missed the initiative that has been emerging over the last few years: the web community is making SSL encryption a baseline security requirement, and it realistically won’t be possible to stay on HTTP much longer.

We have put together a thorough and up-to-date argument about the benefits of acquiring SSL (and serving your site over HTTPS) and how key internet players (the likes of Google, Mozilla, Microsoft, Apple) have put it at the core of the web.

If you think adopting HTTPS is still only about adding secure connections to your site, you need to read this:

Why HTTPS?

Obvious Call to Action

On any website we build, the first thing we ask the business owner is what do we want the visitor on your site to do? Is it order your product? Book your service? Come to visit you? Every website has to have a clear call to action that can be determined as soon as the page loads. There is nothing more frustrating than landing on a site that makes you click all over to get what you want. Make it simple for your customers to give you money by offering a perfectly clear call to action.

Easily accessible contact details.

Your most important details should be easy to find as many customers will come to your page just for this. Sometimes people just want to be able to call you – so this phone number should be on the front page of your site – or if not, at least an obvious link to your contact section where they can get in touch with less than 3 clicks.

Fully responsive design for mobile devices

A responsive website means it looks just as good on a mobile device as it does on desktop. If you have to squeeze your website on mobile to read it, it means it is built using outdated coding techniques and you are putting your business at risk. Not only could you be turning away customers who won’t have the patience to pinch their screens, but Google also ranks based on how responsive your site is. In 2017 this is an absolute must have!