DigitalOcean HTTPS on WordPress

Gabz Mawji|

Nov 29, 2017

Set up HTTPS on WordPress hosted via DigitalOcean

I recently switched over from BlueHost to DigitalOcean, the switch was easy enough and the new site is live. Today I figured out how to successfully redirect all my links to HTTPS to provide a secure connection. The steps are simple to do, but require you to have a non-root sudo user. If you do not have that setup you can do so here.

Anything that is italicised signifies variables you should change to match either your domain, IP, and your user.

Step 1

Step 2

Install the Let’s Encrypt Client.
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:certbot/certbot
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install python-certbot-apache

Step 3

Set up the SSL Certificate.
sudo certbot --apache -d example.com
If you have multiple domains use this command:
sudo certbot --apache -d example.com -d www.example.com
Follow the steps in the installation, you may get prompted to pick a VirtualHost, select the one that has HTTPS enabled.

You will get asked if you want to redirect all links to HTTPS and if you do this you must be sure all your content works over HTTPS.

Your site should now be available over HTTPS.

Optional Step 4

You can test the auto-renewal process by using the below command:
sudo certbot renew --dry-run

Step 5

Log into your WordPress admin panel.
Navigate to Settings > General.
Make sure the WordPress Address (URL) and the Site Address (URL) both have https:// and not http://. If you change this you will be logged out and will need to log back in.

That will make all your admin pages serve over HTTPS also.