Purchasing SSL search for *.domain.com

Question

I'm thinking about purchasing an SSL search for all subdomains of my domain. In other words, if I have a domain domain.com and I have the following subdomains which are all different servers.. server1.domain.com, server2.domain.com, ... , serverN.domain.com. Is it possible to get an SSL cert that will cover all of the different servers which are accessed via a subdomain address? How would this work? I imagine large companies don't just purchase a cert for each machine.

Answer 1

This is often called a UCC certificate.

From http://help.godaddy.com/article/3908:

Unified Communications Certificates (UCC) are SSL Certificates that secure multiple domains and multiple hostnames within a domain. They allow you to secure a primary domain, and up to 99 additional Subject Alternative Names, in a single certificate. UC Certificates are ideal for Microsoft® Exchange Server 2007, Exchange Server 2010, and Microsoft Live® Communications Server.

UC Certificates are compatible with shared hosting however, the site seal and certificate "Issued To" will only list the primary domain. Please note that any secondary hosting accounts will be listed in the certificate as well, so if you do not want sites to appear 'connected' to each other, you should not use this type of certificate.

Answer 2

You can get wildcard certificates, however, they have their limits: no extended validation (so no company name in the browswer's address bar) and a few mobile platforms don't support them (windows mobile and symbian from the top of my head).