The CMSB Cookbook

UPGRADING BLUEHOST FROM SHARED TO PRO HOSTING AND SSL - Jun 10th, 2018


Things learned when upgrading from shared hosting to pro hosting with a dedicated IP address and implementing SSL
certificates on Bluehost.

In the original setup on shared hosting all site files for both example.com and example.org were in a sub-directory
called 'example' in the 'public_html' folder and the .htaccess file in the 'example' sub-directory redirected the
domains to point to the appropriate index file.

The original code for the .htaccess file in the 'example' sub-directory was:

# Use PHP5.4 Single php.ini as default

AddHandler application/x-httpd-php54s .php

RewriteEngine on

RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^(www.)?example.com$

RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !^/example/

RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f

RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d

RewriteRule ^(.*)$ /example/$1

RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^(www.)?example.com$

RewriteRule ^(/)?$ example/index.php [L]

RewriteEngine on

RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^(www.)?example.org$

RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !^/example/

RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f

RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d

RewriteRule ^(.*)$ /example/$1

RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^(www.)?example.org$

RewriteRule ^(/)?$ example/index.php [L]

Here are the changes that were required after upgrading to pro hosting and SSL certificates:

1) I needed to re-assign database permissions to users, since they were wiped during transfer to pro hosting.

Since I still wanted both .com and .org to point to the same 'example' sub-directory,

1) my client needed to obtain 2 SSL certificates.

2) 2 separate, and different, .htaccess files were required. One in the 'public_html' directory and one in the 'example'
sub-directory.

In the 'public_html' .htaccess file, I added the following code to turn on the HTTPS requirement (don’t know if it was
actually necessary, but it seemed to make things work, and doesn’t seem to break anything):

RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTPS} !=on
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ https://%{HTTP_HOST}%{REQUEST_URI} [L,R=301]

In addition, since the .htaccess file in the 'public_html' directory now only redirects the .com (primary domain) to the
'example' sub-directory, the entire code block for the .org was commented out.

# Use PHP5.4 Single php.ini as default

AddHandler application/x-httpd-php54s .php

RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTPS} !=on
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ https://%{HTTP_HOST}%{REQUEST_URI} [L,R=301]

RewriteEngine on

RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^(www.)?example.com$

RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !^/example/

RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f

RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d

RewriteRule ^(.*)$ /example/$1

RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^(www.)?example.com$

RewriteRule ^(/)?$ example/index.php [L]

#RewriteEngine on

#RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^(www.)?example.org$

#RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !^/example/

#RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f

#RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d

#RewriteRule ^(.*)$ /example/$1

#RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^(www.)?example.org$

#RewriteRule ^(/)?$ example/index.php [L]

The .htaccess file in the 'example' sub-directory redirected both .com and .org to the appropriate index file. (Note the
line that was commented out (#) of the original shared hosting .htaccess file code)

# Use PHP5.4 Single php.ini as default
AddHandler application/x-httpd-php54s .php

RewriteEngine on
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^(www.)?example.com$
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !^/example/
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
# RewriteRule ^(.*)$ /example/$1
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^(www.)?example.com$
RewriteRule ^(/)?$ example/index.php [L]

RewriteEngine on
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^(www.)?example.org$
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !^/example/
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
# RewriteRule ^(.*)$ /example/$1
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^(www.)?example.org$
RewriteRule ^(/)?$ example/index.php [L]

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