Normal web traffic is sent unencrypted over the Internet. That is, anyone with access to the right tools can snoop all of that traffic. Obviously, this can lead to problems.The Secure Socket Layer(SSL) is used to encrypt the data stream between the web server and the web client (the browser).
Step 1: Generate a Private Key
The first step is to create your RSA Private Key. This key is a 1024 bit RSA key which is encrypted using Triple-DES and stored in a PEM format so that it is readable as ASCII text.
openssl genrsa -des3 -out server.key 1024
Generating RSA private key, 1024 bit long modulus
…………………………………………………++++++
……..++++++
e is 65537 (0×10001)
Enter PEM pass phrase:
Verifying password – Enter PEM pass phrase:
Step 2: Generate a CSR (Certificate Signing Request)
Once the private key is generated a Certificate Signing Request can be generated. The CSR is then used in one of two ways. Ideally, the CSR will be sent to a Certificate Authority, such as Thawte or Verisign who will verify the identity of the requestor and issue a signed certificate. The second option is to self-sign the CSR, which will be demonstrated in the next section.
During the generation of the CSR, you will be prompted for several pieces of information. These are the X.509 attributes of the certificate. One of the prompts will be for “Common Name (e.g., YOUR name)”. It is important that this field be filled in with the fully qualified domain name of the server to be protected by SSL. The command to generate the CSR is as follows:
openssl req -new -key server.key -out server.csr
Country Name (2 letter code) [GB]:IN
State or Province Name (full name) [Berkshire]:Delhi
Locality Name (eg, city) [Newbury]: ABC City
Organization Name (eg, company) [My Company Ltd]: MyOrg
Organizational Unit Name (eg, section) []:Information Technology
Common Name (eg, your name or your server’s hostname) []:decentminddotcom
Email Address []:deepak at decentmind dot com
Please enter the following ‘extra’ attributes
to be sent with your certificate request
A challenge password []:
An optional company name []:
Step 3: Remove Passphrase from Key
One unfortunate side-effect of the pass-phrased private key is that Apache will ask for the pass-phrase each time the web server is started.
use the following command to remove the pass-phrase from the key:
cp server.key server.key.org
openssl rsa -in server.key.org -out server.key
The newly created server.key file has no more passphrase in it.
Step 4: Generating a Self-Signed Certificate
To generate a temporary certificate which is good for 365 days, issue the following command:
openssl x509 -req -days 365 -in server.csr -signkey server.key -out server.crt
Step 5: Installing the Private Key and Certificate
When Apache with mod_ssl is installed, it creates several directories in the Apache config directory. The location of this directory will differ depending on how Apache was compiled.
cp server.crt /usr/local/apache/conf/ssl.crt
cp server.key /usr/local/apache/conf/ssl.key
Step 6: Configuring SSL Enabled Virtual Hosts
SSLEngine on
SSLCertificateFile /usr/local/apache/conf/ssl.crt/server.crt
SSLCertificateKeyFile /usr/local/apache/conf/ssl.key/server.key
SetEnvIf User-Agent “.*MSIE.*” nokeepalive ssl-unclean-shutdown
CustomLog logs/ssl_request_log \
“%t %h %{SSL_PROTOCOL}x %{SSL_CIPHER}x \”%r\” %b”
Step 7: Restart Apache and Test
/etc/init.d/httpd stop
/etc/init.d/httpd stop
Now check the url with https://yourdomain.com
-deepak
Ref: http://www.akadia.com/services/ssh_test_certificate.html
. Most of the time I try to do some of these in such situations. Wish I could do more better things .
