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NGINX - Managing SSL Certificates Using OpenSSL

Before we can start building our world-changing website or application on LEMP, we have to lay the foundation - the stack. In this hands-on lab, we will walk through the creation of self-signed SSL certificates. Completing this lab will provide have a good understanding of how to create SSL certificates using OpenSSL on Ubuntu Linux.

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Lab Info
Level
Intermediate
Last updated
Sep 22, 2025
Duration
45m

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Table of Contents
  1. Challenge

    Create a Certificate Authority Private Key and Certificate

    Become root:

    sudo su -
    

    Create a directory to store our certificates:

    mkdir -p /etc/nginx/certificates
    
    cd /etc/nginx/certificates
    

    Generate a private key for the CA:

    openssl genrsa 2048 > ca-key.pem
    

    Generate the X509 certificate for the CA. For this step, just hit Enter for all the questions and use the default answers:

    openssl req -new -x509 -nodes -days 365000 
          -key ca-key.pem -out ca-cert.pem
    
  2. Challenge

    Create a Private Key for the NGINX Server

    Generate a private key and create a certificate request for the NGINX server:

    openssl req -newkey rsa:2048 -days 365000 
          -nodes -keyout server-key.pem -out server-req.pem
    

    We will have to answer some questions.

    Process the key to remove the passphrase:

    openssl rsa -in server-key.pem -out server-key.pem
    

    We should see the following: writing RSA key

  3. Challenge

    Create a Self-Signed Certificate for the NGINX Server

    Generate a self-signed X509 certificate for the NGINX server:

    openssl x509 -req -in server-req.pem -days 365000 
          -CA ca-cert.pem -CAkey ca-key.pem -set_serial 01 
          -out server-cert.pem
    

    We now have self-signed X509 certificates for the NGINX server in the /etc/nginx/certificates directory.

    We need to allow the nginx user access to the certificates. Add read permission for group and other:

    chmod 644 *
    
  4. Challenge

    Verify the Self-Signed Certificate for the NGINX Server

    Let's use the openssl verify command to verify that the X509 certificate was correctly generated:

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

    We should see the following: server-cert.pem: OK

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