Skip to main content

How to create Your Own Self-Signed Certificates

SSL Certificates Cheat-Sheet

X.509 is an ITU standard defining the format of public key certificates. X.509 are used in TLS/SSL, which is the basis for HTTPS. An X.509 certificate binds an identity to a public key using a digital signature. A certificate contains an identity (hostname, organization, etc.) and a public key (RSA, DSA, ECDSA, ed25519, etc.), and is either signed by a Certificate Authority or is Self-Signed.

---

Self-Signed Certificates

Generate CA

  1. Generate RSA
openssl genrsa -aes256 -out ca-key.pem 4096
  1. Generate a public CA Cert
openssl req -new -x509 -sha256 -days 365 -key ca-key.pem -out ca.pem


Generate Certificate

  1. Create a RSA key
openssl genrsa -out cert-key.pem 4096
  1. Create a Certificate Signing Request (CSR)
openssl req -new -sha256 -subj "/CN=yourcn" -key cert-key.pem -out cert.csr
  1. Create a extfile with all the alternative names
echo "subjectAltName=DNS:your-dns.record,IP:257.10.10.1" >> extfile.cnf
# optional
echo extendedKeyUsage = serverAuth >> extfile.cnf
  1. Create the certificate
openssl x509 -req -sha256 -days 365 -in cert.csr -CA ca.pem -CAkey ca-key.pem -out cert.pem -extfile extfile.cnf -CAcreateserial


Certificate Formats

X.509 Certificates exist in Base64 Formats PEM (.pem, .crt, .ca-bundle), PKCS#7 (.p7b, p7s) and Binary Formats DER (.der, .cer), PKCS#12 (.pfx, p12).

Convert Certs
COMMAND CONVERSION
openssl x509 -outform der -in cert.pem -out cert.der PEM to DER
openssl x509 -inform der -in cert.der -out cert.pem DER to PEM
openssl pkcs12 -in cert.pfx -out cert.pem -nodes PFX to PEM


Verify Certificates

openssl verify -CAfile ca.pem -verbose cert.pem

Install the CA Cert as a trusted root CA

On Debian & Derivatives
  • Move the CA certificate (ca.pem) into /usr/local/share/ca-certificates/ca.crt.
  • Update the Cert Store with:
sudo update-ca-certificates

Refer the documentation here and here.

On Fedora
  • Move the CA certificate (ca.pem) to /etc/pki/ca-trust/source/anchors/ca.pem or /usr/share/pki/ca-trust-source/anchors/ca.pem
  • Now run (with sudo if necessary):
update-ca-trust

Refer the documentation here.

On Arch

System-wide – Arch(p11-kit) (From arch wiki)

  • Run (As root)
trust anchor --store myCA.crt
  • The certificate will be written to /etc/ca-certificates/trust-source/myCA.p11-kit and the "legacy" directories automatically updated.
  • If you get "no configured writable location" or a similar error, import the CA manually:
  • Copy the certificate to the /etc/ca-certificates/trust-source/anchors directory.
  • and then
update-ca-trust

wiki page here

On Windows

Assuming the path to your generated CA certificate as C:\ca.pem, run:

Import-Certificate -FilePath "C:\ca.pem" -CertStoreLocation Cert:\LocalMachine\Root
  • Set -CertStoreLocation to Cert:\CurrentUser\Root in case you want to trust certificates only for the logged in user.

OR

In Command Prompt, run:

certutil.exe -addstore root C:\ca.pem
  • certutil.exe is a built-in tool (classic System32 one) and adds a system-wide trust anchor.
On Android

The exact steps vary device-to-device, but here is a generalised guide:

  1. Open Phone Settings
  2. Locate Encryption and Credentials section. It is generally found under Settings > Security > Encryption and Credentials
  3. Choose Install a certificate
  4. Choose CA Certificate
  5. Locate the certificate file ca.pem on your SD Card/Internal Storage using the file manager.
  6. Select to load it.
  7. Done!
Back to top