Accessing Your Secure Server

To access your secure server, use a URL like this:

https://your_domain

Note that URLs which are intended to connect to your Red Hat Linux Secure Web Server should begin with the https: protocol designator instead of the more common http: protocol designator. https: is the protocol designator for secure HTTP protocol communications.

So your non-secure server can be accessed using an URL like this:

http://your_domain

The standard port for secure Web communications is port 443. The standard port for non-secure Web communications is port 80. The Red Hat Linux Secure Web Server default configuration listens on both of the two standard ports. Therefore, you won't need to specify the port number in a URL (the port number is assumed).

However, if you configure your server to listen on a non-standard port (i.e., anything besides 80 or 443), you'll need to specify the port number in every URL which is intended to connect to the server on the non-standard port.

For example, you may have configured your server so that you have a virtual host running non-secured on port 12331. Any URLs intended to connect to that virtual host must specify the port number in the URL. The following URL example will attempt to connect to a non-secure Web server listening on port 12331:

http://your_domain:12331

Some of the example URLs used in this manual may need to be changed, depending upon whether you're accessing your Red Hat Linux Secure Web Server or your non-secure Web server. Please view all URLs in this manual as general examples, and not as explicit instructions that will work under all circumstances.