We earn commission when you buy through affiliate links.
This does not influence our reviews or recommendations.Learn more.
There is no rest for the webmaster.
There is always something to do to keep websites healthy and to work in optimal conditions.
For example, monitor the SSL certificates to verify if they are working properly and not expired.
The X.509 Public Key Certificates or, as we all call them, SSL/TLS certificates have an expiration date.
Therefore, as a webmaster, you should probably be sure that your certificates dont expire.
You may think that youre not that lazy.
So lets take a look at all the things related to certificate monitoring.
- The root certificate belongs to a CA, which carefully keeps it in a trust store.
There can be many intermediate certificates in a trust chain, but there has to be at least one.
- The server certificate is issued for the specific domain that needs to be included in the trust chain.
When you buy an SSL certificate, you also get a bundle, including an intermediate root certificate.
Your certificates chain of trust can causeerrorsif something has not been correctly configured.
These are some of the issues that certificate monitoring tools can check for you.
Dotcom-Monitor has everything you should probably monitor SSL certificates in one, easy-to-use dashboard.
Unsure how SSL monitoring would have an effect on your website?
StatusCake has an intelligent SSL algorithm that calculates your SSL score, based on your certificate set-up.
Sematext
Sematext offers SSL certificate expiry checks as part of theirSynthetics Monitoring.
Not just validity but monitor certificate chain, tracking changes, and a lot more.
It will help you avoid your website downtime due to certificate issues.
In addition to that, you will get a detailed report whenever the tracked certificate changes.
The best part is you pay as you go.
The setup takes 3 minutes.
Sucuris complete malware detection service is fee-based, with plans starting at $ 199.99 per year.
Updown
Updownoffers a simple and inexpensive website monitoring service, including SSL testing.
Once you set up the service, you will begin receiving alerts in case of invalid or expiring certificates.
Updown charges only for what you use, with no need to pay fixed monthly or yearly fees.
You buy credits and set up a monitor that operates until it consumes the credit.
The alerting systems covered include SMS, Webhook, Zapier, Telegram, and Slack.
Oh Dear!
Oh Dear!does more than just monitor your domain certificate.
It performs a complete validation of your certificates chain of trust, checking all your intermediate certificates.
Even though the full product is not yet released, the alert service is fully operational.
you’ve got the option to add as many sites as you want to be monitored.
Keychest
Keychestbusiness is all about digital certificates.
It also offers renewal automation with third-party CAs and Lets Encrypt management for businesses.
The purchase includes CSR generation and downloads for Linux and Windows and full automation of renewals.
it’s possible for you to receive reminders by email or through Slack.
The utility can be built on a Docker image or a Kubernetes cluster.
Lets Monitor
Whenever your certificates need renewal or arent working,Lets Monitorwill alert you for free.
The service can send notifications to multiple contacts within a team through email messages or SMS.
It also monitors uptime and performance to ensure the websites stay responsive and their data stays encrypted.
To ensure worldwide access to your secured site, Lets Monitor uses globally distributed servers.
TrackSSL
TrackSSL is a web service that regularly checks your SSL certificates for common errors.
TrackSSL will ensure that infrastructure changes dont affect your certificates, sending you notifications whenever a change is detected.
Pricing plans start at $12 per year to cover up to 20 domains.
It can send a warning by email or log alerts through Nagios.
The utility comes with several options that you’re able to view with the -h option.
Conclusion
If you dont catch expired certificates early enough, the consequences could be really painful.
