I’ve noticed over multiple installs on my personal account on Dreamhost that getting fully set up can get a bit gnarly. Here’s my sequence:
- Get the domain hosted first, and go ahead and tell it to setup a Lets Encrypt cert.
- Immediately over on your domain name admin, make the DNS point to Dreamhost.
- Cross your fingers.
- Install WordPress.
- Then be sure to change the default .htaccess to redirect to https via the incantation below.
# Out of the box .htaccess
# BEGIN WordPress
<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /
RewriteRule ^index\.php$ - [L]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule . /index.php [L]
</IfModule>
# END WordPress
Change it to:
# BEGIN WordPress
<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /
RewriteRule ^index\.php$ - [L]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule . /index.php [L]
# Rewrite HTTP to HTTPS
RewriteCond %{HTTPS} !=on
RewriteRule ^(.*) https://%{SERVER_NAME}/$1 [R,L]
</IfModule>
# END WordPress
And then pray a little.