Generate a self-signed SSL certificate for local development on a Mac

02 Nov 2008 →

Generate a host key

First, make a home for the new SSL files—I use /etc/apache2/ssl. Open up a terminal window, cd to the new directory and issue the following command to create a host key file.

sudo ssh-keygen -f host.key

Generate a certificate request file

This command will create a certificate request file. A certificate request file contains information about your organization that will be used in the SSL certificate. The command will ask you a bunch of questions; because this is for local development, nonsense will suffice.

sudo openssl req -new -key host.key -out request.csr

Create the SSL certificate

Create a self-signed SSL certificate using the request file.

sudo openssl x509 -req -days 365 -in request.csr -signkey host.key -out server.crt

Apache

Add the following to your Apache configuration to use the new certificate:

SSLEngine on
SSLCertificateFile /etc/apache2/ssl/server.crt
SSLCertificateKeyFile /etc/apache2/ssl/host.key

Restart Apache with sudo apachectl restart and try our your new certificate.