SSL is considered an experimental feature in aegir. It can be enabled during the aegir installation process or via admin/build/modules/list.
The Hosting SSL module presents two options; 'Enable SSL encryption' and 'Redirect HTTP to HTTPS', on the add site screen and on the edit site screen.
In Aegir 0.4 alpha6 these options are deselected by default on the add site screen; however, they are selected by default on the edit site screen. This automatic selection
on the edit site screen can cause all sites on an Apache server to become unavailable. See http://groups.drupal.org/node/53903
The following two lines are added to a virtual host file when 'Enable SSL encryption' is selected:
php_value session.cookie_secure 1
SSLEngine On
If a site is edited and Enable SSL encryption is not deselected then the aegir site may freeze during the verify task.
When this happens all other apache sites become unavailable because apache was unable to restart.
To recover from this situation requires use of the command line.
- Edit the offending virtual host configuration file in /var/aegir/config/vhost.d, removing the two SSL lines.
- Execute sudo apache2ctl graceful
- Navigate to another screen on the aegir site to move away from the frozen verify task.
To prevent this from occurring again either disable the Hosting SSL module or deselect the options when editing a site.