How To Lighttpd Create Self Signed SSL Certificates

If you are testing an application (web based) or just want secure login page for your application, you can create a self signed SSL Certificates. I have already explained the procedure for installing real third party signed SSL certificate.

Procedure is as follows:

Step # 1: Create self signed SSL Certificates

Create a directory to store SSL certificate:

# mkdir /etc/lighttpd/ssl/domain.com -p
# cd /etc/lighttpd/ssl/domain.com
# openssl req -new -x509 -keyout server.pem -out server.pem -days 365 -nodes
# chown lighttpd:lighttpd /etc/lighttpd/ssl -R
# chmod 0600 /etc/lighttpd/ssl/domain.com

You need to provide information such as country name, your domain name etc.

Step # 2: Configure Lighttpd

Open lighttpd configuration file:
# vi /etc/lighttpd/lighttpd.conf Add config directives as follows:
$SERVER["socket"] == "192.168.1.100:443" {
server.document-root = "/home/lighttpd/domain.com"
ssl.engine = "enable"
ssl.pemfile = "/etc/lighttpd/ssl/domain.com/server.pem"
}

Make sure you replace ip 192.168.1.100 with your actual IP address.

Step # 3: Restart Lighttpd

Test config file for errors:
# lighttpd -t -f /etc/lighttpd/lighttpd.conf
Now Restart lighttpd:
# /etc/init.d/lighttpd restart

Make sure port 443 is open
# netstat -tulpn | grep :443

Configure firewall/iptables and open port 443. Following is sample iptabables rules. You need to append code to your iptables shell script:
SERVER_IP="192.168.1.100"
iptables -A INPUT -p tcp -s 0/0 --sport 1024:65535 -d $SERVER_IP --dport 443 -m state --state NEW,ESTABLISHED -j ACCEPT
iptables -A OUTPUT -p tcp -s $SERVER_IP --sport 443 -d 0/0 --dport 1024:65535 -m state --state ESTABLISHED -j ACCEPT

Redirect plain text login page to secure login page

Let us assume you would like to redirect all incoming wordpress requests http://domain.com/blog/wp-login.php request to https://domain.com/blog/wp-login.php
Add following code snippet to your lighttpd.conf file's port 80 section:
$HTTP["url"] =~ "^/blog/wp-login.php*" {
url.redirect = ( "^/(.*)" => "https://www.domain.com/$1" )
}


You may need to modify your login page to submit form over SSL.

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