SSL Certificates and ... Providers

[alter3d at alter3d.ca (Peter Kristolaitis)]

Yes, some SSL providers (mostly the overpriced ones) like to "license" 
their certs on a per-server basis.  If you read the contract language, 
this is how it's written.  However, this is strictly a contractual 
issue, not a technical one.   It's just a way to squeeze more money out 
of people who don't know any better.

Speaking strictly from a technical standpoint, there is nothing at all 
stopping you from using the same cert/keys on as many servers as you'd 
like.  There are SSL providers out there that are reasonable about the 
whole thing and sell you a cert, not a single-device-license.

- Pete


On 12/27/2012 2:47 PM, Blake Pfankuch wrote:
> Ok, so this might be a little off topic but I am trying to validate something a vendor is telling me and hoping some people here have expertise in this area...
>
> I am working with a SSL certificate provider.  I am trying to purchase a quantity of wildcard SSL certificates to cover about 60 FQDN's across 4 domains.  Vendor is telling me that the Wildcard certificates are licensed per physical device it is installed on.  This means instead of using a single wildcard across 20 servers, I would have to buy 20 wildcard certs for 20 servers.
>
> This does not compute in my brain and also in my mind completely defeats the purpose of a wildcard cert as I know it.  Has anyone run into this before?
>
> Thanks
> Blake