How to create an HTTPS certificate for localhost domains

2019-https-localhost.md

How to create an HTTPS certificate for localhost domains

This focuses on generating the certificates for loading local virtual hosts hosted on your computer, for development only.

Do not use self-signed certificates in production ! For online certificates, use Let's Encrypt instead (tutorial).

Certificate authority (CA)

Generate RootCA.pem, RootCA.key & RootCA.crt:

openssl req -x509 -nodes -new -sha256 -days 1024 -newkey rsa:2048 -keyout RootCA.key -out RootCA.pem -subj "/C=US/CN=Example-Root-CA"
openssl x509 -outform pem -in RootCA.pem -out RootCA.crt

Note that Example-Root-CA is an example, you can customize the name.

Domain name certificate

Let's say you have two domains fake1.local and fake2.local that are hosted on your local machine for development (using the hosts file to point them to 127.0.0.1).

First, create a file domains.ext that lists all your local domains:

authorityKeyIdentifier=keyid,issuer
basicConstraints=CA:FALSE
keyUsage = digitalSignature, nonRepudiation, keyEncipherment, dataEncipherment
subjectAltName = @alt_names
[alt_names]
DNS.1 = localhost
DNS.2 = fake1.local
DNS.3 = fake2.local

Generate localhost.key, localhost.csr, and localhost.crt:

openssl req -new -nodes -newkey rsa:2048 -keyout localhost.key -out localhost.csr -subj "/C=US/ST=YourState/L=YourCity/O=Example-Certificates/CN=localhost.local"
openssl x509 -req -sha256 -days 1024 -in localhost.csr -CA RootCA.pem -CAkey RootCA.key -CAcreateserial -extfile domains.ext -out localhost.crt

Note that the country / state / city / name in the first command can be customized.

You can now configure your webserver, for example with Apache:

SSLEngine on
SSLCertificateFile "C:/example/localhost.crt"
SSLCertificateKeyFile "C:/example/localhost.key"

Trust the local CA

At this point, the site would load with a warning about self-signed certificates. In order to get a green lock, your new local CA has to be added to the trusted Root Certificate Authorities.

Windows 10: Chrome, IE11 & Edge

Windows 10 recognizes .crt files, so you can right-click on RootCA.crt > Install to open the import dialog.

Make sure to select "Trusted Root Certification Authorities" and confirm.

You should now get a green lock in Chrome, IE11 and Edge.

Windows 10: Firefox

There are two ways to get the CA trusted in Firefox.

The simplest is to make Firefox use the Windows trusted Root CAs by going to about:config, and setting security.enterprise_roots.enabled to true.

The other way is to import the certificate by going to about:preferences#privacy > Certificats > Import > RootCA.pem > Confirm for websites.

Is there a way to use the SSL certificate directly for localhost sites, without installing a web server of some sort? While I can go down that route, I'd rather stay with the simplicity of resolving things using "/etc/hosts"!

@alpheus-madsen To serve HTTPS you need an web server.
As a one liner solution, if you have nodejs installed, do npx backloop.dev <path to serve>, this will provide a localhost SSL certificate plus a minimal web server.

Unfortunately, I got this:

name is expected to be in the format /type0=value0/type1=value1/type2=... where characters may be escaped by . This name is not in that format: 'E:/xampp/Git/C=US/ST=YourState/L=YourCity/O=Example-Certificates/CN=localhost'
problems making Certificate Request

Honestly, I have no idea what I am doing :D, but I was successful using this: https://github.com/FiloSottile/mkcert

Thanks to everyone sharing their knowledge!

Great thanks. Perfect solution !!

here is my server.xml file ssl config part

<Connector port="8443" protocol="org.apache.coyote.http11.Http11NioProtocol"
           maxThreads="150" SSLEnabled="true">
    <UpgradeProtocol className="org.apache.coyote.http2.Http2Protocol" />
    <SSLHostConfig>
	  <Certificate SSLCertificateFile="localhost.crt"
       SSLCertificateKeyFile="localhost.key" />
    </SSLHostConfig>
</Connector>

SHOWING THAT CERTIFICATE NOT SECURE

It worked with one more command addition to that. Found the solution here

openssl pkcs12 -export -out localhost.local.pfx -inkey localhost.local.key -in localhost.local.crt

localhost.local is the custom domain as an example.

Thank you very much. I have spend many hours on it untill running into your article.
Windows 10, phpstudy pane, nginx1.15.11
PS:As for how to config the localhost.key and localhost.crt to nginx1.15.11, you can generate the .key file and the .crt file first and then generate the website in phpstudy ,because you can just pull the .key and .crt file into the .key location and .pem location at the config pane.
I'm not sure if it works when you set up you website first and then change your config.

thank you so much