Correctly configuring SSL with Cloudflare

Overview

Cloudflare is a Content Distribution Network (CDN) and security proxy service, which has a globally deployed network of caching servers. When configuring a site hosted with Conetix to go through Cloudflare, we recommending using the following instructions.

This article assumes you have already configured Cloudflare and have DNS pointed at their systems already.

Instructions

1. Login to the Conetix Control Panel.
2. Select Services, then for the website you wish to configure select Manage:
   
3. Select Plesk One Click Login:
   
4. Under the security area, ensure that an SSL certificate has been generated and applied to the site. If it hasn’t yet, you may see the error that the site hasn’t been secured yet:
   
5. To generate, click on SSL/TLS Certificates, then select the free Let’s Encrypt certificate:
   
6. Then, select the domain and www only. Leave all other checkboxes such as mail and wildcards unchecked:
   
7. Click Get it free to generate. This will generate the certificate and show that the domain now has a certificate:
   
8. Login to your Cloudflare account.
9. Within the selected domain, go to SSL and then to the Overview screen:
   
10. Ensure that the SSL mode is set to Full:
    
11. Once Full has been selected, return to Plesk and go to Hosting & DNS, then select Hosting Settings:
    
12. Select Permanent SEO-safe 301 redirect to ensure all requests are HTTPS based:
    
13. Test the site to confirm it’s working as expected.
    (If your site is WordPress based and has the site URL’s configured to HTTP instead of HTTPS, you will need to update the site URL.)

Using Cloudflare’s Flexible mode will result in odd errors with modern Content Management Systems such as WordPress. This may cause errors such as redirect loops (you will see “too many redirects” in your browser) and other oddities with your site. Conetix does not support the use of Flexible mode.

If there are any issues with the Cloudflare configuration, we recommend talking to your web developer or provider managing your Cloudflare account to confirm the settings above have been applied.