Using GitHub Pages with Custom Domain and HTTPS with Cloudflare
Initial posts I found about enabling https with a custom domain on GitHub Pages were from 2014 and seemed overly complex. However, the process has become very easy with Cloudflare.
Easy enough I won’t go into the details. In summary:
- Buy your domain from your provider of choice.
- Add the domain name in the settings tab of your github.io repository.
- Sign up for the free level of Cloudflare.
- Follow the on-boarding steps for Cloudflare to use their name servers.
- Make sure to set the SSL level to Full.
Done. I set mine up at a low traffic time of day and my DNS updated in a few minutes. Cloudflare is clear that issuing a certificate takes roughly 24 hours.
Update
In Cloudflare’s Crypto section my certificate stayed in the ‘Authorizing Certificate’ state for 3 days. I contacted their support using the support form. It was easy to use, even on my phone. I submitted this as a low priority bug, everything else was working. Within 30 minutes I got this nice response back.
Hi,
Thank you for contacting Cloudflare Support. Sorry that you are experiencing some issues here.
It looks like your SSL certificate stuck at Authorization state. I’ve canceled it and placed a new SSL order for you and will update you once it’s successfully deployed.
2 hours later.
Hi,
SSL Certificate is now Active for your domain.
Sorry for the delays and thank you for your patience while we were working on this.
I will mark this as solved but do let us know if you have any further questions or issues by replying to this e-mail or ticket.
Expectations met and exceeded! I am on the free tier, Cloudflare had better support times than some services I pay for.
Additional Reading
Life Is About to Get a Whole Lot Harder for Websites Without HTTPS