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Yaroslav Polyakov
Yaroslav Polyakov

Posted on • Edited on

Your own Certificate Authority (CA) in ONE simple command

#ssl #tls #https #openssl

You can find many instructions how to make certificates with OpenSSL. OpenSSL is very good except... it's too complex.

Showcert is OpenSSL for humans, much simpler to use and it has gencert utility to generate certificates. Very easy.

Generate self-signed cert with simple command 

gencert example.com www.example.com
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This will make self-signed cert. Easy, isn't it?

Your own CA

Generate CA certificate (1 command):

gencert --ca MyCA
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Thats all! Now, you can import generated MyCA.pem file to browsers and generate signed certificates for sites:

gencert --cacert MyCA.pem --cakey MyCA.key example.com
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What could be simpler?

Install showcert and play for yourself.

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