Joomla is an open source content management system.  It generally runs in a standard, non-secure web hosting environment.  If you plan to use a Joomla environment for e-commerce or just need SSL access for some reason to part of your Joomla site then you may find this information useful.

This tip is for hosting environments that use Linux and Apache.

If your secure hosting environment is a mirror for the non-secure side then you don't need this information.  But, if your hosting site uses totally separate secure and non-secure directories then you might find this helpful.  The following set of 'NIX commands will permanently remove your secure directory tree, create a symbolic link for secure access to the non-secure directory, and set up the necessary command for your Apache server to follow symbolic links. 

Assume your root directory is '/home/httpd/vhosts/mydomain.com', your non-secure directory is 'httpdocs' and your secure directory is 'httpsdocs'. The necessary commands are:

• cd /home/httpd/vhosts/mydomain.com
• rm -rf ./httpsdocs (permanently removes your entire secure directory)
• ln -s ./httpdocs ./httpsdocs (creates a symbolic link)
• echo "Options +FollowSymLinks" > .htaccess (creates .htaccess file with this command for Apache to follow symbolic links)

Your environment may vary so do your homework before blindly doing a SSH to your host and executing these commands.