Question : SSL/Apache2 configuration (Linux from Scratch)

Hi,

This is a follow-on to an earlier question at: http://www.experts-exchange.com/Networking/Unix_Networking/Q_22560258.html

I'm pretty convinced I want to setup SSL on each Linux-from-Scratch/Apache2-based appliance to be deployed on the public web.  I have two more questions which may be fairly stupid, but I wanted to double-check on:

1) Each appliance has to have its own certs because each has a unique address, right?  Can the same password be used to access all appliances though?
2) Do the appliances have to have (fully-qualified) domain names (as opposed to just IP addresses) in order to use SSL?

Thanks for any answers!  Max points again...

Answer : SSL/Apache2 configuration (Linux from Scratch)

If you setup SSL, in order to avoid warnings on the client browser, each server should have a certificate that matches the name of the FQDN used to access the server.  For example, if you access one appliance at https://www.example1.com and another at https://www.example2.com, you would need 2 certificates with the common name one being www.example1.com and the other www.example2.com.  The password to access the server is not dependent on SSL, so yes, they can be the same.

For number 2, if you are going to be accessing it by the fully qualified name, the certificate should be also in order to avoid warnings on the browser.