How to Create and Install Self Signed Certificate in Apache

SSL is useful for secure communication between user and web server. Certificate encrypt the data while traveling on public lines, So it will be secure from hackers. Self-signed certificates are free to use but do not use in the production environment where confidential data like a credit card, PayPal information are used. Click here to read more details about Self-signed certificates.

This how-to guide will help you to step by step create and install Self Signed Certificate in Apache server on Linux systems.

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Step 1 – Install mod_ssl Package

In order to set up a SSL certificate, make sure mod_ssl is installed on your system. If it’s not already installed, use the following command to install it. Also, install OpenSSL package to create the certificate.

sudo apt-get install openssl          # Debian based systems 
sudo yum install mod_ssl openssl      # Redhat / CentOS systems 
sudo dnf install mod_ssl openssl      # Fedora 22+ systems 

Step 2 – Create Self Signed Certificate

After installing mod_ssl and OpenSSL, Create a self-signed certificate for your domain using the following command.

sudo mkdir -p /etc/pki/tls/certs
sudo cd /etc/pki/tls/certs

Now create SSL certificate

sudo openssl req -x509 -nodes -newkey rsa:2048 -keyout example.com.key -out example.com.crt

Generating a 2048 bit RSA private key
....................................+++
...................................+++
writing new private key to 'example.com.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) [XX]: IN
State or Province Name (full name) []: Delhi
Locality Name (eg, city) [Default City]: Delhi
Organization Name (eg, company) [Default Company Ltd]: TecAdmin
Organizational Unit Name (eg, section) []: blog
Common Name (eg, your name or your server's hostname) []: www.example.com
Email Address []: [email protected]

The above command will create one ssl key file example.com.key and one certificate file example.com.crt in current directory.

Step 3 – Install Self Signed Certificate in Apache

Now you have self-signed SSL certificate and key file. Next to edit Apache SSL configuration file and edit/update as per following directives.

Step 4 – Restart Apache

If above command doesn’t show any error restart Apache service.

sudo systemctl restart apache2       # Debian based systems   
sudo systemctl restart httpd         # Redhat based systems 

Step 5 – Test Website with HTTPS

Finally, open your site in your favorite web browser using https. It required opening port 443 to access a site using https.

 https://www.example.com

As we are using a self-signed certificate, you will get a warning message in your browser. You can simply ignore this message using below steps

Firefox User: Expand I Understand the Risks >> Click Add Exception >> Click Confirm Security Exception.
Chrome User: Click Proceed anyway button.
IE Users: Click Continue to this website (not recommended) link.