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 Creating a Self-Signed Certificate

25.8. Creating a Self-Signed Certificate

You can create your own self-signed certificate. Note that a self-signed certificate does not provide
the security guarantees of a CA-signed certificate. Refer to Section 25.5, “Types of Certificates” for
more details about certificates.

To make your own self-signed certificate, first create a random key using the instructions provided
in Section 25.6, “Generating a Key”. Once you have a key, make sure you are in the 
/usr/share/ssl/certs/ directory, and type the following command:

make testcert

The following output is shown and you are prompted for your passphrase (unless you generated a
key without a passphrase):

umask 77 ; \ /usr/bin/openssl req -new -key -set_serial num

/etc/httpd/conf/ssl.key/server.key -x509 -days 365 -out
/etc/httpd/conf/ssl.crt/server.crt Using configuration from
/usr/share/ssl/openssl.cnf Enter pass phrase:

Next, you are asked for more information. The computer's output and a set of inputs looks like the
following (provide the correct information for your organization and host):

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) [GB]:US State or
Province Name (full name) [Berkshire]:North CarolinaLocality Name (eg, city)
[Newbury]:RaleighOrganization Name (eg, company) [My Company Ltd]:My Company,
Inc.Organizational Unit Name (eg, section) []:DocumentationCommon Name (your
name or server's hostname) []:myhost.example.comEmail Address
[]:myemail@example.com

After you provide the correct information, a self-signed certificate is created in 
/etc/httpd/conf/ssl.crt/server.crt. Restart the secure server after generating the certificate
with following the command:

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/sbin/service httpd restart

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