Certificate Management Service allows you to enable hosting for an issued or uploaded certificate and provides dedicated technical support in case the certificate is not renewed in a timely manner. This topic describes how to enable hosting for a certificate.

Enable hosting for a certificate

  1. Go to the Certificate Management Service buy page and log on by using your Alibaba Cloud account.
  2. Configure the parameters for the certificate that you want to purchase based on your business requirements.
    If you want to enable hosting, you must set Service Duration to 2 Years or 3 Years. For more information about the parameters on the buy page, see Purchase an SSL certificate.
  3. Click Buy Now and complete the payment.
    After you complete the payment, Certificate Management Service generates certificates on the Manage Certificates tab. The number of certificates is determined by the value of Service Duration that you specify. For example, if you set Service Duration to 3 Years, Certificate Management Service generates one certificate in the Pending Application state and two associated certificates in the Not Activated state. You can click the Status icon icon next to Pending Application or Not Activated in the Status column to view the certificate lifecycle. States of certificates:
    • Pending Application: The payment is complete and Alibaba Cloud has automatically generated certificates, but the certificates have not been used to submit certificate applications. If your certificate is in this state, you must submit a certificate application and cooperate with the CA to verify your domain name. For more information about how to submit a certificate application, see Submit a certificate application.
    • Hosted: After the first certificate is issued, the status of the certificate changes to Hosted. The Hosted state indicates that Certificate Management Service has hosted the certificate. When the certificate is due to expire, Certificate Management Service automatically activates a new certificate and submits a certificate application. If issues such as enterprise information verification failure or DNS verification failure occur during the application review, your dedicated technical support engineer will contact and guide you to complete the application review.
    • Not Activated: The certificate is not activated. If a certificate is in this state, Certificate Management Service activates the certificate when a different certificate that is associated with the certificate is about to expire. Then, Certificate Management Service submits an application for the activated certificate.

What to do next

After the certificates are generated, you must submit a certificate application for the certificate in the Pending Application state. For more information, see Submit a certificate application.
Note You must manually submit a certificate application for the first certificate that is generated. When the first certificate that is generated is due to expire, the certificate hosting service automatically activates the second certificate that is generated and submits a certificate application by using the information that you specify for the certificate application of the first certificate. You do not need to manually submit a certificate application for the second certificate.