mod_ssl_ca¶

The mod_ssl_ca module adds support for using SSL certificates bought from a Certificate Authority.

A free alternative to CA provided tickets is Let’s Encrypt, see mod_ssl_letsencrypt.

Certificate and key files¶

The files with the certificates and key are placed into the ssl directory inside the site directory user/sites/sitename/ssl/ca/.

Where sitename must be replaced with the name of your site.

The files all have the name of the site in them (sitename in the filenames below). This is to prevent mixing them up with other sites:

user/sites/sitename/ssl/ca/sitename.pem

This holds the private key for the encryption. The key must be unlocked and in PKCS#1 format (see below).

user/sites/sitename/ssl/ca/sitename.crt

This is the certificate. Usually it is supplied by the certificate authority where you bought it. It can also be a self signed certificate, see below.

user/sites/sitename/ssl/ca/sitename.ca.crt

This is the (optional) CA bundle that contains root and intermediate certificates for the certificate authority that issued the sitename.crt certificate.

The certificate authority will supply these. All supplied certificates are concatenated, with the root certificate last.

The concatenation is a literal command, like:

cat intermediate.crt root.crt > sitename.ca.crt

Due to caching, it can take up to a minute before the new certificates are used.

Format of the private key¶

The Erlang SSL implementation uses PKCS#1 format keys. OpenSSL generates (since 2010) PKCS#8 format keys. The difference can be seen when inspecting the key file. A PKCS#1 key starts with:

-----BEGIN RSA PRIVATE KEY-----

Where a PKCS#8 key starts with:

-----BEGIN PRIVATE KEY-----

If mod_ssl sees that the key file is a PKCS#8 file then it will stop and log the following error:

Need RSA private key file. Use: `openssl rsa -in ssl/ca/sitename.key -out ssl/ca/sitename.pem`

The given command is the command needed to convert the key to a PKCS#1 key. The PKCS#8 key should be renamed to sitename.key from sitename.pem, before running the above command.

Note that the resulting key file must be named sitename.pem where sitename is the name of the site the key is placed in.

Using SSL certificates¶

If you order a SSL certificate, the signing authority will ask you which kind of web server you are using and a CSR file. For the web server, select other. For the CSR, use the following command (replace sitename with the name of your site):

openssl req -out sitename.csr -new -newkey rsa:2048 -nodes -keyout sitename.key

When OpenSSL asks for the Common Name then fill in the site’s hostname (e.g. www.example.com).

The resulting .key file can be converted to a .pem file:

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

From the SSL certificate authority you will receive a signed .crt file.

See the section Certificate and key files above for instructions how to use the .crt and .pem files.

Generating a self signed certificate¶

If you want to use a self signed certificate, then run the following commmands (where sitename should be replaced with the name of the site):

openssl req -x509 -nodes -days 3650 -subj '/CN=www.example.com' -newkey rsa:2048 \
     -keyout sitename.key -out sitename.crt

This generates a private key of 2048 bits and a certificate that is valid for 10 years.

If the key is in PKCS#8 format (it starts with -----BEGIN PRIVATE KEY-----), then run the following command as well:

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

If the key is already in PKCS#1 format (it starts with -----BEGIN RSA PRIVATE KEY-----) then just rename the file sitename.key to sitename.pem.