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Author: Dionisie Gitlan

I've been writing for SSL Dragon for over 10 years, focusing entirely on SSL certificates and digital security. My job is to take complex cybersecurity topics and strip away the jargon, making sure you get the clear, practical information you need to keep your website safe.

Articles by Dionisie Gitlan

10 SSL Incidents That Prove Certificate Automation Was Inevitable

The cybersecurity crowd loves to pitch certificate automation as some sleek, forward-thinking upgrade for the modern web. But let’s be real: we didn’t get here because everyone suddenly became proactive. We got here because the industry kept messing up. Automation isn’t a reward for good behavior; it’s an intervention. For years,we’ve seen a spectacular parade […]

Why Certificate Automation Still Has Low Adoption

Certificate automation is a solved problem. The tools exist, the CAs support them, and most IT teams understand the risk of going manual. Yet 38% of organizations still manage certificates with spreadsheets, and 70% admit they don’t have the staff to keep up. The gap between what’s available and what’s adopted isn’t a technical story. […]

Why the Post-Quantum Certificate Challenge Is Bigger Than Shorter Validity

The SSL industry already has one countdown on the wall. By 2029, the old annual renewal rhythm will be gone. Certificates will expire faster, automation will be mandatory, and businesses still running on calendar reminders will fall behind. That challenge, at least, is legible. The harder problem is not about time. It’s about visibility. Post-quantum […]

Let’s Encrypt Pauses Certificate Issuance After Internal Error

On May 8, 2026, Let’s Encrypt temporarily stopped issuing certificates after detecting an internal error in its certificate system. Existing certificates remained valid, but new requests and automated renewals were affected during the interruption. Service was later restored after Let’s Encrypt changed the affected issuance path. What Happened Inside Let’s Encrypt? The interruption traced back […]

Why The SSL Market Is No Longer Selling Encryption

If SSL certificates were only about encryption, the paid market should have collapsed by now. Basic HTTPS is everywhere. Free DV certificates protect ordinary websites. Hosting panels turn SSL into a checkbox. Browsers no longer treat encrypted pages as special; they flag unencrypted ones as broken. Yet paid SSL still exists. The market thrives because […]

Best Code Signing Certificate Providers in 2026

Picking a code signing certificate provider is harder than it should be. Four publicly-trusted Certificate Authorities cover almost every legitimate buying scenario: Sectigo, Comodo, DigiCert, and GoGetSSL. At first glance they all look similar. They issue the same X.509 certificates, follow the same CA/Browser Forum rules, and ship hardware tokens that meet the same FIPS […]

From 398 Days to 47: What the New SSL Certificate Lifetimes Mean

SSL certificate validity is changing, and the shift has already started. The industry is moving away from long-lived certificates and toward much shorter lifetimes, forcing a different approach to how you manage SSL/TLS. This is not a minor update. Reduced SSL validity increases the frequency at which you issue certificates, validate domains, and handle renewals. […]

Behind the Tickets: What Really Makes SSL Errors Difficult to Debug

SSL certificates are often treated as a set-and-forget layer of infrastructure. Once installed, browsers stay quiet, and encryption fades into the background. From a support perspective, reality looks very different. Behind routine installations sits a steady flow of tickets where certificates are technically valid, correctly deployed, and still failing in ways that aren’t immediately visible. […]

CRT vs CER File Extensions Explained

You’ve just received your SSL certificate files and notice two extensions: .crt and .cer. Your server expects one, your certificate authority (CA) sent the other. Before you start troubleshooting, here’s the short answer: both file extensions hold the same X.509 certificate data, and the difference is mostly a naming convention. But “mostly” is doing some […]

Why Multi-Certificate Environments Break TLS Mental Models

At SSL Dragon, we work with SSL certificates across a wide range of environments, from simple single-domain sites to modern stacks where TLS is deliberately spread across multiple layers. Over time, that range makes one thing clear: TLS itself is stable, but the way it’s understood hasn’t kept pace with its evolution. Today, HTTPS commonly […]

Tutorials by Dionisie Gitlan

How to Generate a CSR on Virtualmin

This tutorial shows you how to generate a CSR (Certificate Signing Request) on Virtualmin, the open-source hosting control panel that runs on top of Webmin. The graphical form does the work for you: it builds a 2048-bit (or larger) RSA private key on the server, writes a PKCS #10 request with your subject and any […]

How to Generate a CSR on VestaCP

This tutorial shows you how to generate a CSR on VestaCP using the built-in SSL generator in the web panel. You will also learn how to verify your CSR before submitting it to a Certificate Authority.

How to Generate a CSR on Sentora

This guide shows you how to generate a CSR (Certificate Signing Request) on Sentora using OpenSSL. Sentora’s control panel has no built-in CSR tool, so you create the request on the server itself, which runs on Apache and Linux. A single command produces two files at once: a private key that stays on your server, […]

How to Generate CSR in Plesk

This guide shows you how to generate a CSR (Certificate Signing Request) in Plesk. The steps below follow current Plesk Obsidian (18.x), which is the supported release line. Plesk creates both the CSR and its matching private key for you, and stores the key on the server inside the certificate entry, so all you need […]

How to Generate the CSR on ISPConfig

This guide shows you how to generate a CSR in ISPConfig, the open-source Linux hosting control panel. ISPConfig manages SSL per website: you open the site in the panel, enable SSL on the Domain tab so the SSL tab appears, fill in the organization fields, and set SSL Action to Create Certificate. ISPConfig creates the […]

How to Generate a CSR on InterWorx Control Panel

This tutorial explains how to generate a CSR (Certificate Signing Request) on InterWorx. CSR generation takes place inside SiteWorx, the per-account hosting panel. If you are logged into NodeWorx (the server-admin panel), switch into the target SiteWorx account first, then follow the steps below.

How to Generate a CSR in DirectAdmin

This guide shows you how to generate a CSR (Certificate Signing Request) in DirectAdmin. The CSR is the encoded text block that you submit to your Certificate Authority. It carries your domain and identity details, and DirectAdmin pairs it with a private key it stores on the server. You will create the CSR from the […]

How to Generate a CSR on CWP

This guide shows you how to generate a CSR (Certificate Signing Request) in CWP, the hosting control panel formerly known as CentOS Web Panel and now branded Control Web Panel after CentOS reached end of life in June 2024. The project kept the CWP abbreviation and now runs on RHEL-compatible distributions such as AlmaLinux, Rocky […]

How to Generate a CSR on Tableau Server

This tutorial shows you how to generate a CSR (Certificate Signing Request) and a private key for Tableau Server on both Windows and Linux. Tableau Server has no built-in CSR generator, so you use the OpenSSL binary that ships inside the bundled Apache package. Generate the key and CSR on the Tableau Server node, submit […]

How to Generate a CSR code on Oracle Servers

This guide shows you how to generate a CSR (Certificate Signing Request) on Oracle servers. It covers the three Oracle products where you would create a CSR locally: Oracle Wallet Manager (or the modern orapki command), Oracle iPlanet Web Server, and Oracle WebLogic Server (Java keytool). Pick the section that matches your product, follow the […]