Heroku SSL on root domain

Question

I am trying to setup SSL for my heroku app. I am using the hostname based SSL add-on. The heroku documentation states the following:

Hostname based SSL will not work with root domains as it relies on CNAME 
aliasing of your custom domain names. CNAME aliasing of root domains is 
an RFC violation.

As expected everything works well when I access the site using the www subdomain, i.e. https://www.foo.com. The browser complains when I access https://foo.com as the certificate presented is for heroku.com.

I concluded that I have to redirect the traffic for foo.com to www.foo.com to address this issue. I am considering following approaches:

1) DNS based redirection

The DNS provider Zerigo supports the redirect records. I came across a question on a similar subject on SO. I tried the solution, it works ONLY for HTTP redirection(Zerigo documentation confirms this).

My Zerigo configuration:

foo.com      A             x.x.x.x
foo.com      redirect      http://www.foo.com
www.foo.com  CNAME         zzz.amazonaws.com

2) Rack based redirection

Add a rack based middle-ware to perform the redirection. The canonical-host gem provides such support.

use CanonicalHost do
  case Rails.env.to_sym
    when :staging     then 'staging.foo.com'
    when :production  then 'www.foo.com'
  end
end

I am wondering if there is a better solution for this(barring switching to $100 per month IP based SSL)

user_10173248 · Answer

I found DNSimple to be complicated for my current web developer competence. I finally signed up with easyDNS and moved the domain I purchased at Godaddy over to easyDNS. Annual cost for a standard easyDNS subscription is currently $20. Good thing about easyDNS is that they actually answer their phone. A few minutes on the phone and I had my DNS target configured properly for Heroku. Tested my app and it worked for HTTP. When I upgraded my heroku app to a paid hobby dyno, which is currently $7/mo, it instantly applied SSL protection. Tested my app in the browser again, and it worked serving over HTTP and HTTPS. Next, I uncommented some code in my nodejs app that redirects http => https. One more test in a browser, seems good to go. Secure. Works with www and it works with the root domain. Bottom line: you may not have to pay for a Heroku Endpoint at $20/mo. Hope that helps.

Heroku SSL on root domain

7 Answers