Self signed SSL certificate

Generating a self signed SSL certificate involves three steps:

1. Create RSA private and public key pair
2. Create a Certificate Signing Request (CSR)
3. Create the certificate

The following outputs from the above process will be necessary to configure HTTPS:

1. RSA keys (keys.pem)
2. Certificate (certificate.pem)

Lets look at each step in details.

Generate RSA key pair

The following command generated 2048 bit RSA key pair and puts them in a file named keys.pem.

openssl genpkey -algorithm RSA -out keys.pem -pkeyopt rsa_keygen_bits:2048

Create CSR

The following command creates CSR. Provide appropriate details in the prompt.

openssl req -new -key keys.pem -out csr.csr

Generate certificate

The following command creates the certificate certificate.pem.

openssl x509 -req -sha256 -days 365 -in csr.csr -signkey keys.pem -out certificate.pem

What's next?

Learn how to use certificate.pem and keys.pem to configure HTTPS with Jaguar using the following wiki entry: 'HTTPS'.