Nginx Install Ssl Certificate Centos
Introduction
The development of the internet and its associated technologies has made secure connections a must for anyone who wants to have a website accessible to the public. A secure connection is essential for e-commerce websites that accept credit card payments and for certain banking operations. One of the most popular methods for establishing secure HTTP connections is the use of Secure Socket Layer (SSL) certificates. This article will provide an overview of the Nginx install SSL certificate in CentOS.
Setup SSL on Nginx
Before we can begin installing our Nginx SSL certificate on CentOS, we need to make sure that we have the necessary packages installed. If you are using a version of CentOS that is compatible with the EPEL repository, then you can use the command line to install the necessary packages:
sudo yum install -y nginx mod_ssl
If the EPEL repository is not available for your version of CentOS, then you will need to download the packages from the nginx.org website. Once the packages have been installed, you can start the nginx server with the following command:
sudo /opt/nginx/bin/nginx Start
Generate SSL Certificate
Now that our nginx server is running, we can generate a 2048-bit RSA private key and an SSL certificate signing request for our self-signed SSL certificate. To do this, we need to use the OpenSSL command line utility:
openssl req -newkey rsa:2048 -nodes -keyout mydomain.key -out mydomain.csr
While running the command, you will be asked a series of questions to fill out the SSL certificate signing request. Make sure to double-check all the information you provide, since any errors could cause problems when trying to install the certificate. Once you have completed the command, you will have two new files in the current directory – mydomain.key and mydomain.csr.
Install the SSL Certificate
The next step is to install the self-signed SSL certificate. To do this, we need to use the OpenSSL command line utility again:
openssl x509 -req -days 365 -in mydomain.csr -signkey mydomain.key -out mydomain.crt
This time, you will not have to provide any information; the command will automatically create a self-signed SSL certificate with the information in the certificate signing request. Once the command has completed, you should have three files in the current directory – mydomain.key, mydomain.csr, and mydomain.crt.
Configure Nginx to Use SSL
Now it’s time to configure nginx to use the certificate we generated. This can be easily done by editing the appropriate configuration file. For example, on CentOS, the default configuration file can be found at /etc/nginx/nginx.conf. The following four lines need to be added to the default configuration file in order to tell nginx to use the SSL certificate:
ssl_certificate /path/to/mydomain.crt;
ssl_certificate_key /path/to/mydomain.key;
ssl_ciphers HIGH:!aNULL:!MD5;
ssl_prefer_server_ciphers on;
Once these changes have been made, you can restart the nginx server with the command line:
sudo /opt/nginx/bin/nginx restart
Enable Forced SSL Usage
To make sure that our website is served over HTTPS instead of HTTP, we need to configure nginx to force SSL usage. This is done by editing the appropriate configuration file. Again, on CentOS, the default configuration file can be found at /etc/nginx/nginx.conf. We need to add the following two lines to the file:
server {
listen 443 ssl;
Once these changes have been made, we can restart the nginx server with the command line:
sudo /opt/nginx/bin/nginx restart
Conclusion
We have successfully installed an SSL certificate on our Nginx server running on CentOS. We’ve also configured the server to force SSL usage. As a result, our website can now be served over a secure HTTPS connection, providing extra security to our visitors. We hope this tutorial has been helpful to you as you set up an SSL certificate for your website.
FAQs
1. How do I install an SSL certificate on nginx?
You can install an SSL certificate on nginx by generating a 2048-bit RSA private key and an SSL certificate signing request, installing the self-signed SSL certificate, and then configuring nginx to use the certificate.
2. How do I configure nginx to use my SSL certificate?
You can configure nginx to use your SSL certificate by adding the following four lines to the appropriate configuration file:
ssl_certificate /path/to/mydomain.crt;
ssl_certificate_key /path/to/mydomain.key;
ssl_ciphers HIGH:!aNULL:!MD5;
ssl_prefer_server_ciphers on;
3. How do I enable forced SSL usage on nginx?
You can enable forced SSL usage on nginx by adding the following two lines to the appropriate configuration file:
server {
listen 443 ssl;
Thank You
Thank you for reading this article! Please consider reading our other articles related to Nginx and SSL certificates, as well as other topics related to web hosting and development.
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