SSL Questions for a novice

[esoteric]

Hi, I'm new to this forum, and I'm also fairly new to the whole webhosting side of things.

Could someone explain to me or point in the direction of some good info on setting up SSL with an online shop? I'm using CubeCart with the Premium Plan hosting here at Webhosting UK. My shop is directly in the root at the moment. I know what to do from within CubeCart and I understand the concepts of SSL, I know that I need to protect things such payments, and logins etc.
What I don't understand is how do I protect with SSL only the pages that need protecting, rather than the whole site? Do I need to put these pages in a seperate folder?

I was asked the following questions by support in order for them to set it up, but I'd like to understand the answers too:

Also, in order to generate a SSL cert for your domain, please provide the following information ::
- Host to make cert for:

and

Also let us know do you want ssl with www or without www.

I'm not quiet sure of the answers to the above, so I thought I'd post it on the forum as it may provide useful for other newbies.

cheers,
esoteric

[Dan]

Hi,

Support are asking you what the current host you are with is, or the servers IP address or your domain name in most cases. This is so the SSL cert can be pointed to that server and your account.. mainly along the same lines as a domain name.

Also the answer to your other question. If your cart is placed in the root DIR of your account then i would suggest having SSL with www. This is because a website without www SSL will have to be pointed to a website using

https://mycart.com/order.php and you cant use www infront of it for the simple fact www ssl isn't enabled and the cert will not work.

[harry]

Yeah, You can protect your few required pages using SSL .
All you have to do is to create a subdomain and place all required pages you want to secure under that subdomain, install SSL for this subdomain.

Just for eg : You can see that whenever you click on ordernow button at webhosting.UK you are directed at secure pages which are under a subdomain (secure) : secure.webhosting.uk.com/order/orderwiz.php which is SSL certified.

[esoteric]

Thanks Dan, Harry, I think I'm geting there

So, if I get my SSL with www, dedicated SSL with dedicated ip address, then the whole store will be running under SSL https? Is this 'normal', will this slow things down for browsers, and can you have SSL for individual pages rather than the whole store, without using the subdomain method?

[Dan]

Yes, as Harry stated above, you can protect your few required pages above. There are many tutorials on SSL encryption and certificates... here's one below;

help.websiteos.com/websiteos_en/setting_up_a_private_ssl_certificate.htm