How To Setup SSL Certificate for AWS EC2 Ubuntu

Let’s learn how to setup SSL certificate to your domain pointing to AWS EC2  Ubuntu Instance. It’s a quick and easy way to steps without any confusion

• Step 1: Buy SSL Certificate from a vendor like Godaddy, SSls.com or any.
• Step 2: Create private key from ubuntu Ec2 instance

• sudo openssl req -new -newKey rsa:2048 -nodes -keyout /etc/apache2/ssl/yourdomain.key -out /etc/apache2/ssl/yourdomain.csr

  Note: yourdomain.key must match your domain name like if I am creating key and csr for nishantverma.me, than name of my key should be nishantverma.key | nishantverma.csr

• Step 3: Upload your private keep to your purchased SSL certificate vendor to get the authorized certificate. (Apache Server) Download the certificate generated. You will get files as bellow
• Step 4: Once you have your certificate ready. Let’s check if your apache server has mod_ssl. upload a info.php file to your /var/www/html/info.php with content as

   <?php phpinfo(); ?>

  • If mod_ssl not install. Install it using

    sudo a2enmod ssl

• Step 5: Upload your Certificate file to your server (Note: Keep your private and ctr all files at once place so that it will be easy to use). Assume, If you have uploaded your files to this location

  /home/ubuntu/my-ssl-certifications/5a65a450e2f24b11.crt
  /home/ubuntu/my-ssl-certifications/yourdomain.key

• Step 6: Now once you have all files in the server lets configure apache virtual host to use SSL
  • Open default-ssl.conf using any editor

    sudo vim /etc/apache2/sites-available/default-ssl.conf

  • With the comments removed, the file looks something like this:

            ServerAdmin webmaster@localhost
            DocumentRoot /var/www/html
            ErrorLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/error.log
            CustomLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/access.log combined
            SSLEngine on
            SSLCertificateFile /etc/ssl/certs/ssl-cert-snakeoil.pem
            SSLCertificateKeyFile /etc/ssl/private/ssl-cert-snakeoil.key
            <FilesMatch "\.(cgi|shtml|phtml|php)$">
                            SSLOptions +StdEnvVars
            
            
                            SSLOptions +StdEnvVars
            
            BrowserMatch "MSIE [2-6]" \
                            nokeepalive ssl-unclean-shutdown \
                            downgrade-1.0 force-response-1.0
            BrowserMatch "MSIE [17-9]" ssl-unclean-shutdown
        
    

  • The entries in red were modified from the original file:

            ServerAdmin webadmin@example.com
            ServerName yourdomain.com
            ServerAlias www.yourdomain.com
            DocumentRoot /var/www/html
            ErrorLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/error.log
            CustomLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/access.log combined
            SSLEngine on
            SSLCertificateFile /home/ubuntu/my-ssl-certifications/5a65a450e2f24b11.crt
            SSLCertificateKeyFile /home/ubuntu/my-ssl-certifications/yourdomain.key
            <FilesMatch "\.(cgi|shtml|phtml|php)$">
                            SSLOptions +StdEnvVars
                            SSLOptions +StdEnvVars
            
            BrowserMatch "MSIE [2-6]" \
                            nokeepalive ssl-unclean-shutdown \
                            downgrade-1.0 force-response-1.0
            BrowserMatch "MSIE [17-9]" ssl-unclean-shutdown

• Step 6: Now that we have configured our SSL-enabled virtual host, we need to enable it.

   sudo a2ensite default-ssl.conf

• Step 7: Restart Apache to load your new virtual host file.

   sudo service apache2 restart

Test your stuff https://server_domain_name_or_IP 🙂

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