Generate Ssl Key And Cert

12.04.2020
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Generating a private key and CSR to get an SSL certificate. If your organization doesn't already have a private key and SSL certificate, follow the instructions in this section. It explains how to generate your own private key and a certificate signing request (CSR), which you can then use to get an SSL certificate. Generate a private key. Apr 09, 2020 Generate a server private key using a utility (OpenSSL, cfssl etc) Create a CSR using the server private key. Generate the server certificate using CA key, CA cert and Server CSR. Also Read: Types of SSL/TLS Certificates Explained. This guide explains the steps required to create CA, SSL/TLS certificates using the following utilities. Jul 09, 2019 This key folder also contains all the keys ever generated in your cPanel. WHM stores your private keys and CSR codes in the SSL Storage Manager menu. On the homepage, click SSL/TLS SSL Storage Manager. To view the Private Key, click the magnifier icon next to the relevant key in the Key column. Jul 08, 2009 You can also generate self signed SSL certificate for testing purpose. In this article, let us review how to generate private key file (server.key), certificate signing request file (server.csr) and webserver certificate file (server.crt) that can be used on Apache server with modssl. Key, CSR and CRT File Naming Convention. You need to generate your own self-signed certificate or request a certificate to a Trusted Authority. After this you will get the.key (the private key of the certificate) and.crt (the public part of the certificate) To create a self signed certificate follow this link How to create a self-signed certificate with openssl? You will need openssl.

If you want to convert your website from HTTP to HTTPS, you need to get a SSL certificate from a valid organization like Verisign or Thawte. You can also generate self signed SSL certificate for testing purpose.

In this article, let us review how to generate private key file (server.key), certificate signing request file (server.csr) and webserver certificate file (server.crt) that can be used on Apache server with mod_ssl.

Key, CSR and CRT File Naming Convention

I typically like to name the files with the domain name of the HTTPS URL that will be using this certificate. This makes it easier to identify and maintain.

  • Instead of server.key, I use www.thegeekstuff.com.key
  • Instead of server.csr, I use www.thegeekstuff.com.csr
  • Instead of server.crt, I use www.thegeekstuff.com.crt

1. Generate Private Key on the Server Running Apache + mod_ssl

First, generate a private key on the Linux server that runs Apache webserver using openssl command as shown below.

The generated private key looks like the following.

2. Generate a Certificate Signing Request (CSR)

Using the key generate above, you should generate a certificate request file (csr) using openssl as shown below.

3. Generate a Self-Signed SSL Certificate

For testing purpose, you can generate a self-signed SSL certificate that is valid for 1 year using openssl command as shown below.


You can use this method to generate Apache SSL Key, CSR and CRT file in most of the Linux, Unix systems including Ubuntu, Debian, CentOS, Fedora and Red Hat.

4. Get a Valid Trial SSL Certificate (Optional)

Instead of signing it youself, you can also generate a valid trial SSL certificate from thawte. i.e Before spending the money on purchasing a certificate, you can also get a valid fully functional 21 day trial SSL certificates from Thawte. Once this valid certificate works, you can either decide to purchase it from Thawte or any other SSL signing organization.

This step is optional and not really required. For testing purpose, you can always use the self-signed certificate that was generated from the above step.

Go to Thwate trial certificate request page and do the following:

Sd gundam g generation overworld key code. So a more smooth animation will be implanted.New level cap to 999Old BGM available for customization.

  • Select “SSL Web Server Certificate (All servers)” under the “select your trial certificate”.
  • Do not check the PKCS #7 check-box under the “configure certificate”
  • Copy/Paste the *.csr file that you generate above in the textbox under “certificate signing request (CSR)”
  • Click on next at the bottom, which will give you a 21-day free trial certificate.


Copy/Paste the trial certificate to the www.thegeekstuff.com.crt file as shown below.

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The Application Gateway v2 SKU introduces the use of Trusted Root Certificates to allow backend servers. This removes authentication certificates that were required in the v1 SKU. The root certificate is a Base-64 encoded X.509(.CER) format root certificate from the backend certificate server. It identifies the root certificate authority (CA) that issued the server certificate and the server certificate is then used for the TLS/SSL communication.

Application Gateway trusts your website's certificate by default if it's signed by a well-known CA (for example, GoDaddy or DigiCert). You don't need to explicitly upload the root certificate in that case. For more information, see Overview of TLS termination and end to end TLS with Application Gateway. However, if you have a dev/test environment and don't want to purchase a verified CA signed certificate, you can create your own custom CA and create a self-signed certificate with it.

Note

Self-signed certificates are not trusted by default and they can be difficult to maintain. Also, they may use outdated hash and cipher suites that may not be strong. For better security, purchase a certificate signed by a well-known certificate authority.

In this article, you will learn how to:

  • Create your own custom Certificate Authority
  • Create a self-signed certificate signed by your custom CA
  • Upload a self-signed root certificate to an Application Gateway to authenticate the backend server

Prerequisites

  • OpenSSL on a computer running Windows or Linux

    While there could be other tools available for certificate management, this tutorial uses OpenSSL. You can find OpenSSL bundled with many Linux distributions, such as Ubuntu.

  • A web server

    For example, Apache, IIS, or NGINX to test the certificates.

  • An Application Gateway v2 SKU

    If you don't have an existing application gateway, see Quickstart: Direct web traffic with Azure Application Gateway - Azure portal.

Create a root CA certificate

Create your root CA certificate using OpenSSL.

Create the root key

Create Ssl Key And Certificate Mac

  1. Sign in to your computer where OpenSSL is installed and run the following command. This creates a password protected key.

  2. At the prompt, type a strong password. For example, at least nine characters, using upper case, lower case, numbers, and symbols.

Create a Root Certificate and self-sign it

  1. Use the following commands to generate the csr and the certificate.

    The previous commands create the root certificate. You'll use this to sign your server certificate.

  2. When prompted, type the password for the root key, and the organizational information for the custom CA such as Country, State, Org, OU, and the fully qualified domain name (this is the domain of the issuer).

Create a server certificate

Next, you'll create a server certificate using OpenSSL.

Create the certificate's key

Generate Ssl Key Cert

Use the following command to generate the key for the server certificate.

Create the CSR (Certificate Signing Request)

The CSR is a public key that is given to a CA when requesting a certificate. The CA issues the certificate for this specific request.

Note

The CN (Common Name) for the server certificate must be different from the issuer's domain. For example, in this case, the CN for the issuer is www.contoso.com and the server certificate's CN is www.fabrikam.com.

  1. Use the following command to generate the CSR:

  2. When prompted, type the password for the root key, and the organizational information for the custom CA: Country, State, Org, OU, and the fully qualified domain name. This is the domain of the website and it should be different from the issuer.

Generate the certificate with the CSR and the key and sign it with the CA's root key

  1. Use the following command to create the certificate:

Verify the newly created certificate

  1. Use the following command to print the output of the CRT file and verify its content:

  2. Verify the files in your directory, and ensure you have the following files:

    • contoso.crt
    • contoso.key
    • fabrikam.crt
    • fabrikam.key

Configure the certificate in your web server's TLS settings

In your web server, configure TLS using the fabrikam.crt and fabrikam.key files. If your web server can't take two files, you can combine them to a single .pem or .pfx file using OpenSSL commands.

IIS

For instructions on how to import certificate and upload them as server certificate on IIS, see HOW TO: Install Imported Certificates on a Web Server in Windows Server 2003.

For TLS binding instructions, see How to Set Up SSL on IIS 7.

Apache

The following configuration is an example virtual host configured for SSL in Apache:

NGINX

The following configuration is an example NGINX server block with TLS configuration:

Access the server to verify the configuration

  1. Add the root certificate to your machine's trusted root store. When you access the website, ensure the entire certificate chain is seen in the browser.

    Note

    It's assumed that DNS has been configured to point the web server name (in this example, www.fabrikam.com) to your web server's IP address. If not, you can edit the hosts file to resolve the name.

  2. Browse to your website, and click the lock icon on your browser's address box to verify the site and certificate information.

Verify the configuration with OpenSSL

Or, you can use OpenSSL to verify the certificate.

Upload the root certificate to Application Gateway's HTTP Settings

To upload the certificate in Application Gateway, you must export the .crt certificate into a .cer format Base-64 encoded. Since .crt already contains the public key in the base-64 encoded format, just rename the file extension from .crt to .cer.

Azure portal

To upload the trusted root certificate from the portal, select the HTTP Settings and choose the HTTPS protocol.

Azure PowerShell

Or, you can use Azure CLI or Azure PowerShell to upload the root certificate. The following code is an Azure PowerShell sample.

Note

The following sample adds a trusted root certificate to the application gateway, creates a new HTTP setting and adds a new rule, assuming the backend pool and the listener exist already.

Verify the application gateway backend health

  1. Click the Backend Health view of your application gateway to check if the probe is healthy.
  2. You should see that the Status is Healthy for the HTTPS probe.

Next steps

To learn more about SSLTLS in Application Gateway, see Overview of TLS termination and end to end TLS with Application Gateway.