My service provider, Network Solutions, says the only way to get SSL working with their DNN (4.9.0) offering is to do one of the things below

How does one do these things? And related specificially to (1) where are the links for pages formed? I hope I don't have to mess with the database, because I don't have access to that...

Network Solutions says I need to do one of these things:

(1) Make all the links to the sensitive pages https, or

(2) use a client-side program (like javascript) to detect if it's secure and redirect if it's not. The coding below will do just that. Just modify it to redirect to the correct secure domain and add it into the HTML of any sensitive pages.

script language="javascript">
if (document.location.protocol != "https:")
{
document.location.href = "https://secure.domain.com" + document.location.pathname;
};
</script>

HI David

AFAIK and in my experience DNN does all this for you.
Assuming the certificate is correctly installed you simply click the SSL check box (page settings) for whatever page. This then routes menu calls for the page to https.
Tip: On secure pages it may help to make image links absolute (https://www.mysite/portals etc) and not relative in order to avoid the "this page contains secure and unsecured content" message.

Be aware. DNN 4.9.0 is rather old and may well be missing some recent security updates. It may be worth asking them to install 5.22 or at least 4.9.5. Of course you can do this yourself as long as you have ftp access.

Hope this helps

Ian
 

 Hi David

Are you using a shared SSL or have you bought your own?

It may well be a good idea to check out other DNN hosting.  Your current is asking you to use an older and less secure version of DNN and you are having ssl issues.
I have never managed to use a shared SSL - these days owning your own is not expensive - as little as $10 a year.  https://www.servertastic.com/  

I am suggesting this as there is nothing worse than fighting a difficult host.  In the end its simply cheaper to go with a decent asp.net host cause then you can just "get on".

Ian