Thank you. I managed to get SSL working, but not in the traditional way — it's kind of a hack: I set up an .htaccess file on the http:// version of the URL that says:

RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTP:X-Forwarded-SSL} !on
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ https://%{HTTP_HOST}%{REQUEST_URI} [R=301,L]

And I think it's working properly, because I'm not getting any browser warnings about insecure content. This particular RewriteCond using HTTP:X-Forwarded-SSL is recommended by my host, Webfaction.

I did locate a configuration file called .openerp_serverrc at the path ~/$HOME/.openerp_serverrc and I set the proxy_mode = True

I did not set up a private Apache or Nginx server for the installation of Odoo, but the way Webfaction works, the Odoo site is automatically being served by Nginx.

Depending on how you installed Odoo, the name of your "odoo.conf" can also be openerp-server.conf and it can be located in /etc/odoo directory for example.

There you need the following entry: proxy_mode = True

However, this does not help if you do not have enough access rights to your server in order to complete all necessary steps to install and set up your Apache or Nginx server. So you should revert to your hosting provider to get the necessary help.