Cumulus Support

I use my PHP banner in a flight sim forum as part of my signature. They have recently upgraded their security and as a result my banner is not being updated.

This is the reply I received..

Yes, you will need to tell your service we have a new link to AVSIM as we are now secure - https://www.avsim.com. The old links will tell your service that the site is not secure.

I haven't any idea on what I need to do on my 123-reg.co.uk site I use to administer my website. Could some kind person talk me through the steps please? Or is this something I need to tell 123 support for them to change things?

First, you would need to have your site available via HTTPS. If your hosting company provides free certificates via LetsEncrypt, then use your hosting control panel to install/enable https access to your website.

If you are on a shared hosting server, your hoster may want to charge you for a certificate (usually a fairly exorbitant fee/year), in which case I'd not worry about https on your site, and remove your banner link on the forum that wants HTTPS links only.

Thanks for the rapid reply. Steve does the hosting for me so when he next logs in we can hopefully get the answer.

If it does involve extra expenditure I'll have to consider if it's worth it.

HTTPS is not something I've considered providing. If it's easy to do and low cost, I can look into it, but I would need a guide of some sort to tell me what to do.

Thanks Steve. Is that something people here can assist with? My knowledge is zero sadly.

steve wrote:HTTPS is not something I've considered providing. If it's easy to do and low cost, I can look into it, but I would need a guide of some sort to tell me what to do.

it is free

letsencrypt

Personally I use sslforfree, - which uses letsencrypt - as this allows me to download my keys/certs manually since I cannot automate the cert renewal on my present setup.

you host depending on who it is can then setup the https side with the key/certs you provide and adds them into the Apache setup.

I've found some guides for letsencrypt with virtual hosts and it looks fairly straightforward. I did also find a thread on the letsencyrpt forum where someone broke their web server config while installing it and it apparently took them a week to get it back online...

Ray, I had a look at your web site to remind myself what you're using and it doesn't appear to be the Saratoga Templates, so I'm a bit confused - selected the wrong forum section?

Hi Steve. This all sounds very encouraging. No, I don't use the Saratoga template. I stuck to the original Cumulus-supplied one and modified it over time.

But I do use the PHP script for the signature banner. Does that help?

I've moved the thread out of the Saratoga section as you're not using those.

I don't think it matters that the banner is a PHP script, I think the same letsencrypt setup will work regardless of the type of file - you'll just need to change your link to start with https://...

Sorry Steve, being a bit thick. Do you mean the link to my site. So it would become:-

https://www.cheadlehulmeweather.co.uk/banner.php

except that doesn't work.

The link in the AvSim forum for my signature is as follows:-

<img alt="banner.php?source=view" data-cke-saved-src="https://www.avsim.com/applications/core ... 818c9f5428" src="https://www.avsim.com/applications/core ... 818c9f5428">

That's what the link would look like, yes, if the web server supported HTTPS, which it doesn't, currently.

Sorry. I'm guessing you need a bit of time to sort it out. I shall be patient.

OK, that seems to be working now and I haven't broken the server!

Steve, you are a star man! Thank you very much. Just to confirm it didn't involve any expense on your side?

No, didn't cost anything.