Web Services: Configuring a Web Server for HTTPS on Apache

1. First, we should elevate to root:

sudo -i

2. Now we should navigate somewhere to store these certificates. We could just use the default location, but I prefer keeping the certificates with the application they're protecting.

cd /etc/httpd/conf/
openssl req -new -newkey rsa:2048 -nodes -keyout server.key -out server.csr

This will ask a lot of questions about where the certificate is being used. For a self-signed certificate in a temporary lab environment, just accept the default. In a production environment, you should fill all the information out.

3. Now we sign the request:

openssl x509 -req -in server.csr -signkey server.key -out server.crt

With that done, we need to set up Apache.

1. First, we should install the required module:

yum install mod_ssl -y

2. Edit the SSL configuration file to set the location of the SSLCertificateFile and SSLCertificateKeyFile:

vim /etc/httpd/conf.d/ssl.conf

3. Make sure we have an HTML file to serve:

cd /var/www/html
echo "This is SSL" > index.html

4. Restart Apache:

systemctl restart httpd

5. Verify that everything is being served correctly:

curl https://localhost
curl https://localhost -k

Remember, the error you receive on the first curl is because we're using a self-signed certificate. If that's the only error (verified by the second curl), then you've completed the steps correctly, and you're done!