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  3. July 2006

Re: using multiple digital certificates



Is it possible to assign multiple digital certificates to a single
apache web server instance? We host one secure name now for three
different sites but want to switch to using three different names each
with their own certificate.
Others have explained that you can't do it with name-based virtual hosts, you have to use IP-based virtual hosts... I'll attempt to explain why that is...
Name based virtual hosting works by looking at the hostname sent by the browser in it's GET or POST request. For example, a browser will send something like this: 

GET /apps/payables/pendinginvoices?invno=12345&acct=4321 HTTP/1.1
Host: ais.pct.edu:443
Apache looks at the Host: keyword and uses it to decide which virtual host the request is for. In this case, the browser sent "ais.pct.edu" so the server knows to look for a virtual host with that name. 

But this can't be used to determine the SSL certificate...
Why not? Because the SSL session, certificates and encryption are established BEFORE that GET request was sent. It has to be! You want the data on the GET request (in this example, an invoice number and account number) to be encrypted. What if you sent a credit card number? Or some other sensitive information? The encryption needs to be activated before that GET request was sent.
If the GET request hasn't been sent yet, there's no possible way for the host: keyword that's part of that request to be used in establishing certificates.
Instead, you need to use IP-based virtual hosts. The IP address is known before the SSL session is established, and therefore can be used to decide which certificate to send. Unfortunately, this means that you have to have a separate IP address for each certificate.

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