Entri has the ability to automatically provision SSL certificates. Your happy customers will be able to secure custom encrypted domains for your application instantly with no extra work required by your engineering team.

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Configure your Entri account

Before you can provision SSL certificates on Entri, you’ll need to provide some basic information. Log into the Entri Dashboard, navigate to the SSL section, and enter the following information:

  • The applicationUrl, which is the URL of the application that responds to requests coming from your clients’ URLs. This is also commonly referred to as an origin server.
  • Your company’s cname_target. This is the CNAME record that your customers need. It needs to be pointed to ssl.goentri.com and will be the target domain for your clients’ requests, providing a layer of security and encryption.

For example, if you run saascompany.com. You would first create a CNAME record:

json
{
  "type": "CNAME",
  "host": "domains",
  "value": "ssl.goentri.com",
  "ttl": 300,
}

You’re now ready to provision SSL certificates for your customers.

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Provision a certificate

After you’ve configured your account for SSL, there are two methods of provisioning an SSL certificate for your customer’s domain: utilizing the Entri modal, or making a direct API request.

Provisioning a certificate for a subdomain is effortless with the Entri modal. Add an extra property, ssl: true, to the CNAME record that will be set by Entri (as shown in the configuration object below) and set value to be {CNAME_TARGET}.

{CNAME_TARGET} will automatically use the CNAME target entered in the dashboard in step 1.

JSON
{
  "type": "CNAME",
  "host": "www",
  "value": "{CNAME_TARGET}",  // This will match the CNAME target defined in the Entri dashboard in step 1
  "ttl": 300,
  "ssl": true,
}

We suggest this method because it guarantees that your user has properly added the required cname_target record. Without this CNAME record added to your customer’s DNS, Entri cannot provision an SSL certificate.

Additionally, if the user has a conflicting CAA record, Entri will automatically fix it during the DNS setup process.

For more information about configuring the Entri modal, see: Create the configuration object.

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SSL certificates for the root domain via the Entri Modal

You can also create an SSL certificate for the root domain using Entri. It will require you to add an extra dnsRecord to the configuration, and Entri will do all the rest for you. This feature will create 2 new A records with Entri’s IPs on the root domain’s dns configuration and will use Entri as proxy to encrypt and forward the traffic to your application.

JSON
{
  type: "A",
  host: "@",
  value: "{ENTRI_SERVERS}",
  ttl: 300,
  ssl: true,
  applicationUrl: "my.applicationurl.com", // [Optional] overrides the pre-configured applicationUrl
  redirectTo: "some.domain.com" //[Optional] Allows you to create a custom redirect policy from the secured domain to any other domain or subdomain.
}

You should only use the applicationUrl key, whenever you need to override the applicationUrl configured on your Customer Dashboard.

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Provisioning an SSL certificate directly via API

You can also provision SSL certificates without using the Entri modal in just 2 steps:

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1. Checking the domain eligibility

To secure domains without displaying the Entri modal, you first need to make a GET request to our API which confirms that the domain you want to issue the SSL certificate for contains a CNAME record pointing to your cname_target

Use the following information for the GET Request:

Example using curl:
curl -G https://api.goentri.com/ssl
   -H "Content-Type: application/json"
   -H "Authorization: [JWT authorization]"
   -H "applicationId: [yourApplicationID]"
   -d "domain=www.test.com"
   -d "rootDomain=false"

If the domain contains the required cname_target and the ssl certificate hasn’t been provisioned yet, then our API will return "eligible": true. If it does not contain cname_target and/or it already has a provisioned certificate, then our API will return "eligible": false .

The rootDomain=true parameter is used for whenever you are trying get the root domain’s SSL status (not the subdomain).

Possible response messages

Domain is eligible for SSL:

JSON
{
  "eligible": true,
  "sslStatus": "inactive",
  "cnameTarget": "domains.saascompany.com",
  "applicationUrl": ""
}

Domain has been already setup:

JSON
{
  "eligible": false,
  "sslStatus": "active",
  "cnameTarget": "domains.saascompany.com",
  "applicationUrl": "my.applicationurl.com"
}

Domain is ineligible for SSL because cname record not been set up:

JSON
{
  "eligible": false,
  "sslStatus": "inactive",
  "cnameTarget": "domains.saascompany.com",
  "applicationUrl": ""
}

If your GET request returned "eligible": true then you can proceed to the next step below.

Important Warning Do NOT proceed with making a POST request in Step 2 (below) unless the domain returned "eligible": true in theGET request from Step 1. Otherwise, the POST request will be denied.

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2. Provision an SSL certificate

After you have confirmed that your customer has added your cname_target and therefore is eligible for an SSL certificate, you can proceed with provisioning the SSL certificate via a POST request to our endpoint as detailed below:

  • Endpoint: <https://api.goentri.com/ssl>
  • Authorization header: The authorization JWT. You can Fetch your JWT using your Client Secret set in the configure section of the Entri Dashboard.
  • applicationId header: Your applicationId can be found in the configure section of the Entri Dashboard.
  • Include the domain in the POST body. domain may contain a subdomain such as **www.**domain.com or site.domain.com if you want to add an SSL for a subdomain, or use a root domain.
  • When using a root domain, this feature will create 2 new A records with Entri’s IPs on the root domain’s dns configuration and will use Entri as proxy to encrypt and forward the traffic to your application.

Example using curl:

curl -X POST https://api.goentri.com/ssl
   -H "Content-Type: application/json"
   -H "Authorization: [JWT authorization]"
   -H "applicationId: [yourApplicationID]"
   -d '{
         "domain": "www.test.com",
         "applicationUrl": "my.applicationurl.com" //[Optional] Used for rewriting Dashboard's pre-configured url
         "redirectTo": "some.domain.com" //[Optional] Allows you to create a custom redirect policy from the secured domain to any other domain or subdomain.
      }'

See the full SSL certificate API reference for more.

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Get notified when the SSL certificate is provisioned

You can use Entri’s Webhook functionality to listen for when an SSL certificate has been provisioned on a domain. Check for "secure_status": "success" in the webhook payload.

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Appended Headers on Incoming Traffic

As part of the SSL provisioning process, all incoming traffic will have specific headers appended to each request. These headers provide additional context about the original request, including information about the host and IP address. The following headers will be added automatically to every incoming request:

  • X-Forwarded-Host: This header contains the original Host value of the incoming request before any proxy or load balancer has modified it. It helps in identifying the initial destination for the request.

  • x-entri-forwarded-host: Similar to X-Forwarded-Host, this is a custom header used by Entri to track the original host at the time the request was forwarded through Entri’s system.

  • X-Forwarded-IP: This header contains the original IP address of the client making the request. It is useful for understanding where the request originated from, even if it passed through proxies or load balancers.

These headers ensure that downstream services can access critical metadata about the request, facilitating better logging, security, and handling of the requests in your system.

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Renew SSL certificates

IMPORTANT: Entri automatically renews each certificate. However, if you need to renew it manually, you can utilize the following endpoint.

Example using curl:

curl -X PUT https://api.goentri.com/ssl
   -H "Content-Type: application/json"
   -H "Authorization: [JWT authorization]"
   -H "applicationId: [yourApplicationID]"
   -d '{
         "domain": "www.test.com",
      }'

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Deprovision SSL certificates when domains are no longer active

To deprovision SSL certificates, make a DELETE request to our API using the following information:

Example using curl:

curl -X DELETE https://api.goentri.com/ssl
   -H "Content-Type: application/json"
   -H "Authorization: [yourClientSecret]"
   -H "applicationId: [yourApplicationID]"
   -d '{"domain": "www.test.com"}'

See the full SSL certificate API reference for more.

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About Entri Secure SSL certificates (FAQ)

How does Entri Secure’s SSL configuration work?

Entri uses a reverse proxy with SSL termination. To illustrate the flow of data:

  1. A client (such as a web browser) makes a request to your customer’s domain.
  2. That request goes through Entri’s reverse proxy server and is passed along to your service.
  3. Your service returns a response through the reverse proxy, which is then passed back to the client.
Why should you trust Entri Secure as a reverse proxy?

Entri Secure uses Amazon Web Services with multi-region architecture to avoid single points of failure and minimize latency. We also leverage advanced distributed denial of service (DDOS) protection.

You can view Entri’s uptime history on our status page.

What certificate authority does Entri Secure use?

Entri is proud to use Let’s Encrypt SSL certificates.

How long on average does it take for the certificate to go live?

On average, between 3-7 seconds.

Can I use Entri Secure with Cloudflare?

Yes you can.

How many times can I provision the same domain?

You can re-provision for the same domain a maximum amount of 5 times during a 24 hours period.

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