Securing Apache with SSL certificate

Securing Apache with SSL certificate

1. install mod_ssl or openssl

[root@tct ~]# yum install mod_ssl openssl

 2. Generate a self-signed certificate

Using OpenSSL we will generate a self-signed certificate. If you are using this on a production server you are probably likely to want a key from Trusted Certificate Authority, but if you are just using this on a personal site or for testing purposes a self-signed certificate is fine. To create the key you will need to be root so you can either su to root or use sudo in front of the commands

1. Generate private key

[root@tct ~]#  openssl genrsa -out cert.key 1024 
2. Generate CSR(certificate request)
[root@tct ~]# openssl req -new -key cert.key -out ca.csr

3.  Generate Self Signed Key
[root@tct ~]# openssl x509 -req -days 365 -in cert.csr -signkey cert.key -out cert.crt

3. Copy the files to the correct locations
[root@tct ~]# cp cert.crt /etc/pki/tls/certs[root@tct ~]# cp cert.key /etc/pki/tls/private[root@tct ~]# cp cert.csr /etc/pki/tls/private 

4. Import key to apache
[root@tct ~]# vim /etc/httpd/conf.d/ssl.conf

   SSLCertificateFile /etc/pki/tls/certs/cert.crt
  SSLCertificateKeyFile /etc/pki/tls/private/cert.key
wq: save n exit
 

5. Now restart apache
[root@tct ~]# /etc/init.d/httpd restart;chkconfig httpd on
6. now open url to check if ssl is working using  https://url 

 

Setting up ssl for the virtual hosts

 NameVirtualHost *:443
 

<VirtualHost *:443>
    SSLEngine on
    SSLCertificateFile /etc/pki/tls/certs/cert.crt
    SSLCertificateKeyFile /etc/pki/tls/private/cert.key
    ServerAdmin root@.example.com
    DocumentRoot /var/www/html
    ServerName root.example.com
    DirectoryIndex test.html
    ErrorLog logs/test/error_log
    CustomLog logs/test/access_log common