Make CS-Cart Work With an SSL Certificate

What is SSL?

SSL is a lock for your website. It scrambles the data that travels between your visitor and your store, so nobody can read it on the way. A site with SSL starts with https:// and shows a padlock in the browser.

CS-Cart is an online store program. It has its own settings for HTTPS. You must set them, or the lock may not appear.

Before you start: Your SSL certificate must already be installed on your domain. Open https://yourdomain.com in a browser. If you see a warning, ask Hostvento support to check the certificate first.

Steps

Log in to the Hostvento client area and open your hosting control panel.
Open File Manager and go to the folder where CS-Cart is installed. This is often public_html.
Make a copy of the file config.local.php. This is your backup in case something goes wrong.
Right-click config.local.php and choose Edit.
Find the lines that start with $config['http_host'] and $config['https_host']. The first holds your normal address. The second holds your secure address.
Set both to your domain name, without http:// or https://. For example:
```
$config['http_host'] = 'www.example.com';
$config['https_host'] = 'www.example.com';
```
These lines tell CS-Cart which address to use for normal pages and for secure pages.
Check the lines http_path and https_path. Leave them empty if the store is in the main folder. Write the folder name, such as /store, if it is in a sub-folder.
Click Save Changes.
Log in to the CS-Cart admin panel.
Open the security settings and turn on the secure options for checkout, the storefront and the admin area. The exact menu name depends on your CS-Cart version, so look in Settings for a section called security.
Clear the CS-Cart cache so old addresses are forgotten. Look for a cache option in the admin panel.
Visit your store and check for the padlock.

Tip: If the page loads but the padlock shows a warning, an image or script may still use an http:// address. Change those links to https://.

If your store stops loading

A wrong value in config.local.php can break the store. Put your backup copy back in place. Then try again, slowly.

Quick recap

Install the SSL certificate first and test it in a browser.
Back up config.local.php before you change it.
Set http_host and https_host to your domain.
Turn on the secure options in the CS-Cart admin panel.
Clear the cache and look for the padlock.