An SSL certificate is an electronic ‘document’ that is used to bind together a public security key and a website’s identity information (such as name, location, etc.) by means of a digital signature. The ‘document’ is issued by a certificate provider such as GlobalSign, Verisign, GoDaddy, Comodo, Thawte, and others.
In this article we’re going to be covering how to create a self-signed SSL certificate and assign it to a domain in Apache. Self-signed SSL certificates add security to a domain for testing purposes, but are not verifiable by a third-party certificate provider. Thus, they can result in web browser warnings.
First let’s view whether Apache 2 already has the SSL module loaded.
apache2ctl -M | grep ssl
The module is already loaded if the result of the above command is:
ssl_module (shared)
Otherwise, we need to load the SSL module:
a2enmod ssl
The output of that command should look similar to:
Considering dependency setenvif for ssl:
Module setenvif already enabled
Considering dependency mime for ssl:
Module mime already enabled
Considering dependency socache_shmcb for ssl:
Enabling module socache_shmcb.
Enabling module ssl.
See /usr/share/doc/apache2/README.Debian.gz on how to configure SSL and create self-signed certificates.
To activate the new configuration, you need to run:
service apache2 restart
And now we’ll restart Apache:
service apache2 restart
Step #2: Setup the Environment, and Create the Self-signed SSL Certificate
Make a directory to store the certificate and the server key:
mkdir /etc/apache2/ssl
Generate the SSL via OpenSSL with the following command:
openssl req -x509 -nodes -days 365 -newkey rsa:2048 -keyout /etc/apache2/ssl/apache.key -out /etc/apache2/ssl/apache.crt
The above command will generate a <reference_page_text>2048 -bit private key and corresponding CSR that remains valid for <reference_page_text>365 days, and place those files into the new directory. The output of the above command will result in the following, of which you’ll need to answer a few questions:
Generating a 2048 bit RSA private key
............+++
...........+++
writing new private key to '/etc/apache2/ssl/apache.key'
-----
You are about to be asked to enter information that will be incorporated into your certificate request.
What you are about to enter is what is called a Distinguished Name or a DN.
There are quite a few fields but you can leave some blank
For some fields there will be a default value,
If you enter '.', the field will be left blank.
-----
Country Name (2 letter code) [AU]: US
State or Province Name (full name) [Some-State]: Michigan
Locality Name (eg, city) []: Lansing
Organization Name (eg, company) [Internet Widgits Pty Ltd]: XWEB
Organizational Unit Name (eg, section) []: KB
Common Name (e.g. server FQDN or YOUR name) []: kb.thebestfakedomainnameintheworld.com
Email Address []: email@thebestfakedomainnameintheworld.com
Tip: It is very important that the <reference_page_text>Common Name be set appropriately. Enter your fully qualified domain name (FQDN) here or, if you don’t have an FQDN, then your site’s IP address.
Now that the private key and associated CSR have been generated, we need to edit the SSL configuration file for Apache:
vim /etc/apache2/sites-available/default-ssl.conf
Find the section:
VirtualHost _default_:443
Then, find:
ServerAdmin webmaster@localhost
And add the following Virtual Host configuration on the next line:
ServerName kb.thebestfakedomainnameintheworld.com:443
Be sure to replace kb.thebestfakedomainnameintheworld.com with your fully qualified domain name or server IP address for your Virtual Host. Keep in mind, that the domain should be the same as the <reference_page_text>Common Name specified in the previous step.
Verify that the following variables are set appropriately in the same file:
SSLEngine on
SSLCertificateFile /etc/apache2/ssl/apache.crt
SSLCertificateKeyFile /etc/apache2/ssl/apache.key
Then exit and save the file with the command <reference_page_text>:wq .
Activate the virtual host with the command:
a2ensite default-ssl
Then restart Apache once more:
service apache2 restart
In this tutorial my test domain was kb.thebestfakedomainnameintheworld.com, so I can now visit https://kb.thebestfakedomainnameintheworld.com to test the SSL certificate setup. Use https://yourdomain to test your new self-signed SSL certificate!
