Creating a self-signed SSL certificate

There are 2 possibilities: make a CA (Certificate Authority) and sign a server certificate with it or simply self-sign a server certificate.

• Without making a CA (Certificate Authority):
  • $ openssl req -new -x509 -sha256 -newkey rsa:2048 -days 10000 -nodes -out server.crt -keyout server.key
  • Set the Common Name (CN) to the FQDN and enter "." for everything else.
• Creating a CA and sign a server certificate with it:
  • $ openssl req -new -x509 -sha256 -newkey rsa:2048 -days 10000 -nodes -out myCA.crt -keyout myCA.key

• Put files server.crt and server.key to /etc/httpd/ (on Slackware) and set their permissions to 400.