A certificate that is issued by a certificate authority (CA) is valid for up to 397 days. After the certificate expires, you must manually renew and update the certificate. To prevent your business from being affected when your certificate is not renewed, Certificate Management Service provides the certificate hosting feature. If the validity period of your certificate that is issued and uploaded is less than 30 calendar days, the system automatically applies for a new certificate.
Feature introduction
The certificate hosting feature provides the following capabilities: automatic certificate application before expiration, automatic adding of remaining validity periods, and dedicated technical support.
Automatic certificate application before expiration: If a certificate for which you enable this feature and the domain name bound to the certificate belong to the same Alibaba Cloud account, and the CA determines that the information specified in the certificate application is valid, the feature automatically submits an application for an associated certificate within 30 calendar days before the hosted certificate expires, and returns the associated certificate to the Certificate Management Service console. If the preceding conditions are not met, Alibaba Cloud contacts you to help you check the certificate application materials and quickly obtain a new certificate.
Dedicated technical support: If you want to install a certificate on your web server, the certificate hosting feature provides online instructions to install the certificate. This can help enterprises that do not have technical personnel and individuals install certificates.
NoteThe certificate hosting feature does not automatically install associated certificates on your web servers. After you obtain an associated certificate that is issued in automatic mode for a hosted certificate, you must manually install the certificate on your web server under the guidance of dedicated customer service staff to replace the hosted certificate.
Automatic adding of remaining validity periods: The certificate hosting feature automatically adds the remaining validity period of a hosted certificate to the associated certificate. The expiration time of the associated certificate is one year later than the expiration time of the hosted certificate. For example, if a hosted certificate has a validity period of one year and expires on August 1, 2022, and Alibaba Cloud automatically applies for a new certificate and the certificate is issued on July 20, 2022, the validity period of the new certificate is from July 20, 2022 to August 1, 2023. The remaining validity period of the hosted certificate from July 20, 2022 to August 1, 2022 is added to the new certificate.
ImportantThe remaining validity period of a hosted certificate can be added to the associated certificate only when the specifications of the associated certificate are the same as those of the hosted certificate. The specifications are the domain name type, certificate type, and certificate brand.
The remaining validity period of an uploaded certificate cannot be added to its associated certificate. If you enable hosting for a certificate of the preceding types, Alibaba Cloud automatically submits an application for an associated certificate within 15 calendar days before the hosted certificate expires.
Service fees
You cannot request a refund for an associated certificate of a hosted certificate in the Certificate Management Service console. If you want to request a refund, contact your account manager.