How do I generate an SSL certicate?/ How to access a page with invalid certicate in FF3?

Question

I am not able to access localhost https pages in firefox3. It gave the error

'Can't connect securely because the SSL protocol has been disabled. (Error code: ssl_error_ssl_disabled)'

I enabled all the SSL2 related preferences through about:config and the error changed to

'Data Transfer Error The browser connected successfully, but the connection was interrupted while transferring information. Please try again.'

Anyone has a workaround?? The first error seems most likely due to a invalid certificate but can't figure out the second...

Answer 1

What web server serves the pages? Is it IIS or Apache? Did you try to access these pages with other browsers? Answering the questions will give a clue if problems is in browser or web server.

Here is good link how to create SSL ceritificates

Answer 2

Quick way to create a self-signed certificate using openssl:

openssl req -new -x509 -days 365 -nodes -out /etc/apache2/cert.pem -keyout /etc/apache2/cert.pem -subj '/C=US/ST=Yourstate/L=Yourcity/O=Your Company, Inc./OU=Development/CN=your.vhostname.com/[email protected]'

(It's better to create a CA certificate separately and use that to create a certificate to use; apache complains to the error log when you use a self-signed certificate like above. But I don't have a recipe handy for doing that.)

Then in your apache configuration (separately for each virtual host if needed), say:

SSLEngine on
SSLCertificateFile /etc/apache2/cert.pem

and make sure mod_ssl is enabled.

You may be able to debug your problems using curl:

$ curl -sSvk https://your.vhostname.com 2>&1 | less