Free SSL Certificate Setup for WordPress on Google Cloud (Bitnami)

September 15, 2017Leron AminComments Open

IMPORTANT: There is an updated version of this tutorial available here.

In this quick-start tutorial you will learn how to configure free, auto-renewing SSL certificates for WordPress websites that are hosted on Google Cloud Platform compute engine using the Bitnami version of WordPress on Google Cloud Platform.

Having SSL Security on your website will improve your Google search ranking.

If you’re using the Click-to-Deploy version of WordPress on Google Cloud Platform, you can view that SSL certificate tutorial here.

Before getting started with this tutorial, you should have already:

Installed WordPress on Google Cloud
Set up a Domain Name for your WordPress website
Reserved a Static IP Address for your VM instance.

ssl certificates wordpress on google cloud platform access menu — Go to your Google Compute homepage and click the hamburger menu in the upper left-hand corner.

ssl certificate for wordpress on google cloud platform compute engine vm instances — Go to your Compute Engine, then to VM instances to access your WordPress installation.

ssl certificate setup for wordpress on google cloud platform compute engine — Once inside your Compute Engine, click on the SSH button to connect to your WordPress installation.

ssl certificate setup wordpress google cloud platform compute engine bitnami — Now that you’ve connected to your website’s Apache server, you are going to execute the command to install the Certbot client. The Certbot client is used to issue the SSL certificates that will be used later on in this tutorial.

wget https://dl.eff.org/certbot-auto && chmod a+x certbot-auto

After executing each of these commands, you can either stay in the same SSH window or exit and open a new one.

ssl certificate setup wordpress google cloud platform bitnami — In this step you are going to execute the command below in order to tell the Certbot client to create SSL certificates for your website. Remember to replace 1pagezen.com with your own domain name.

./certbot-auto certonly --webroot -w /opt/bitnami/apps/wordpress/htdocs/ -d 1pagezen.com -d www.1pagezen.com

Note: Instructions for testing the certificate auto-renew script were moved here.

./certbot-auto renew --dry-run

ssl certificate setup wordpress google cloud bitnami — If you get a success message, it means that the certificates are renewing properly.

Important Notice: The auto-renew configuration instructions outlined in this section are no longer valid. For updated instructions on configuring auto-renewal, click here. Before configuring auto-renewal, you should skip to step 6 and finish the tutorial first.

sudo crontab -e

ssl certificate setup wordpress google cloud click to deploy — Now that you’ve created a new crontab file, scroll to the bottom and paste the commands listed below. The command will tell Certbot to check for renewals twice per day.

0 0 * * * ./certbot-auto renew --quiet --no-self-upgrade
  
0 12 * * * ./certbot-auto renew --quiet --no-self-upgrade

After adding this code, enter ctrl+o to save changes, followed by ctrl+x to exit back to your home screen.

sudo nano /opt/bitnami/apache2/conf/bitnami/bitnami.conf

ServerName www.1pagezen.com
  
ServerAlias 1pagezen.com    
  
Redirect permanent / https://www.1pagezen.com/

SSLCertificateFile "/etc/letsencrypt/live/1pagezen.com/cert.pem"
  
SSLCertificateKeyFile "/etc/letsencrypt/live/1pagezen.com/privkey.pem"
  
SSLCertificateChainFile "/etc/letsencrypt/live/1pagezen.com/chain.pem"

After adding this code, enter ctrl+o to save changes, followed by ctrl+x to exit back to your home screen.

Changing your website URLs via Settings > General is disabled in the Bitnami version, so you'll need to change your URLs by editing your wp-config.php folder.

sudo nano /opt/bitnami/apps/wordpress/htdocs/wp-config.php


  REPLACE THIS:
  

  

  define('WP_SITEURL', 'http://' . $_SERVER['HTTP_HOST'] . '/');

  define('WP_HOME', 'http://' . $_SERVER['HTTP_HOST'] . '/');

  

  

  WITH THIS:
  

  

  define('WP_HOME','https://www.1pagezen.com'); 

  define('WP_SITEURL','https://www.1pagezen.com');

Remember to replace 1pagezen with either the www. or non-www. version of your domain name - whichever your prefer. For example:


  define('WP_HOME', 'https://1pagezen.com');

  define('WP_SITEURL', 'https://1pagezen.com');

After adding this code, enter CTRL+o to save changes, followed by CTRL+x to exit back to your home screen.

sudo /opt/bitnami/ctlscript.sh restart apache

Now that you've completed the tutorial, you should configure your certificates to auto-renew using this tutorial. Also, if your configuration isn't working properly, check out the tutorial below to learn about common SSL errors and how to fix them.