How to create a self-signed certificate for a domain name for development

Question

I have subdomain example com that I use for development purposes  My web application solution contains a web API etc  that I need to call from external systems  hence I am not using localhost   I now need to test for SSL and need a certificate for my subdomain example com development domain name   I have tried creating a self-signed certificate as outlined in http   technet microsoft com en-us library cc753127 v ws 10  aspx  but this certificate only works for localhost  Can this certificate be used for my purpose or will I have to create a self-signed for my development subdomain  If I have to create a self-signed certification for my development subdomain  what utility or online service  Free  can I use for this

User · Answer

Using PowerShell  From Windows 8 1 and Windows Server 2012 R2  Windows PowerShell 4 0  and upwards  you can create a self-signed certificate using the new New-SelfSignedCertificate cmdlet    Examples   New-SelfSignedCertificate -DnsName www mydomain com -CertStoreLocation cert  LocalMachine My  New-SelfSignedCertificate -DnsName subdomain mydomain com -CertStoreLocation cert  LocalMachine My  New-SelfSignedCertificate -DnsName   mydomain com -CertStoreLocation cert  LocalMachine My   Using the IIS Manager   Launch the IIS Manager At the server level  under IIS  select Server Certificates On the right hand side under Actions select Create Self-Signed Certificate  Where it says  Specify a friendly name for the certificate  type in an appropriate name for reference    Examples  www domain com or subdomain domain com  Then  select your website from the list on the left hand side  On the right hand side under Actions select Bindings Add a new HTTPS binding and select the certificate you just created  if your certificate is a wildcard certificate you ll need to specify a hostname  Click OK and test it out

User · Answer

With IIS s self-signed certificate feature  you cannot set the common name  CN  for the certificate  and therefore cannot create a certificate bound to your choice of subdomain   One way around the problem is to use makecert exe  which is bundled with the  Net 2 0 SDK  On my server it s at   C  Program Files Microsoft Net SDK v2 0 64bit Bin makecert exe   You can create a signing authority and store it in the LocalMachine certificates repository as follows  these commands must be run from an Administrator account or within an elevated command prompt    makecert exe -n  CN My Company Development Root CA O My Company   OU Development L Wallkill S NY C US  -pe -ss Root -sr LocalMachine  -sky exchange -m 120 -a sha1 -len 2048 -r   You can then create a certificate bound to your subdomain and signed by your new authority    Note that the the value of the -in parameter must be the same as the CN value used to generate your authority above    makecert exe -n  CN subdomain example com  -pe -ss My -sr LocalMachine  -sky exchange -m 120 -in  My Company Development Root CA  -is Root  -ir LocalMachine -a sha1 -eku 1 3 6 1 5 5 7 3 1   Your certificate should then appear in IIS Manager to be bound to your site as explained in Tom Hall s post   All kudos for this solution to Mike O Brien for his excellent blog post at http   www mikeobrien net blog creating-self-signed-wildcard

User · Answer

To Create the new certificate for your specific domain   Open Powershell ISE as admin  run the command   New-SelfSignedCertificate -DnsName   mydomain com  localhost -CertStoreLocation cert  LocalMachine My   To trust the new certificate    Open mmc exe Go to Console Root -  Certificates  Local Computer  -  Personal Select the certificate you have created  do right click -  All Tasks -  Export and follow the export wizard to create a  pfx file Go to Console Root -  Certificates -  Trusted Root Certification Authorities and import the new  pfx file   To bind the certificate to your site    Open IIS Manager Select your site and choose Edit Site -  Bindings in the right pane Add new https binding with the correct hostname and the new certificate

User · Answer

I ran into this same problem when I wanted to enable SSL to a project hosted on IIS 8  Finally the tool I used was OpenSSL  after many days fighting with makecert commands The certificate is generated in Debian  but I could import it seamlessly into IIS 7 and 8   Download the OpenSSL compatible with your OS and this configuration file  Set the configuration file as default configuration of OpenSSL   First we will generate the private key and certificate of Certification Authority  CA   This certificate is to sign the certificate request  CSR    You must complete all fields that are required in this process    openssl req -new -x509 -days 3650 -extensions v3 ca -keyout root-cakey pem -out root-cacert pem -newkey rsa 4096   You can create a configuration file with default settings like this  Now we will generate the certificate request  which is the file that is sent to the Certification Authorities    The Common Name must be set the domain of your site  for example  public organization com    openssl req -new -nodes -out server-csr pem -keyout server-key pem -newkey rsa 4096   Now the certificate request is signed with the generated CA certificate    openssl x509 -req -days 365 -CA root-cacert pem -CAkey root-cakey pem -CAcreateserial -in server-csr pem -out server-cert pem   The generated certificate must be exported to a  pfx file that can be imported into the IIS    openssl pkcs12 -export -out server-cert pfx -inkey server-key pem -in server-cert pem -certfile root-cacert pem -name  Self Signed Server Certificate    In this step we will import the certificate CA    In your server must import the CA certificate to the Trusted Root Certification Authorities  for IIS can trust the certificate to be imported  Remember that the certificate to be imported into the IIS  has been signed with the certificate of the CA    Open Command Prompt and type mmc  Click on File  Select Add Remove Snap in     Double click on Certificates  Select Computer Account and Next -   Select Local Computer and Finish  Ok  Go to Certificates -  Trusted Root Certification Authorities -  Certificates  rigth click on Certificates and select All Tasks -  Import           Select Next -  Browse     You must select All Files to browse the location of root-cacert pem file  Click on Next and select Place all certificates in the following store  Trusted Root Certification Authorities  Click on Next and Finish      With this step  the IIS trust on the authenticity of our certificate    In our last step we will import the certificate to IIS and add the binding site    Open Internet Information Services  IIS  Manager or type inetmgr on command prompt and go to Server Certificates  Click on Import     Set the path of  pfx file  the passphrase and Select certificate store on Web Hosting         Click on OK  Now go to your site on IIS Manager and select Bindings    and Add a new binding  Select https as the type of binding and you should be able to see the imported certificate  Click on OK and all is done

User · Answer

I had to puzzle my way through self-signed certificates on Windows by combining bits and pieces from the given answers and further resources  Here is my own  and hopefully complete  walk-through  Hope it will spare you some of my own painful learning curve  It also contains infos on related topics that will pop up sooner or later when you create your own certs   Create a self-signed certificate on Windows 10 and below  Don t use makecert exe  It has been deprecated by Microsoft  The modern way uses a Powershell command   Windows 10   Open Powershell with Administrator privileges   New-SelfSignedCertificate  -DnsName    dev local    dev local    localhost   -CertStoreLocation cert  LocalMachine My  -FriendlyName  Dev Cert   dev local  dev local  localhost   -NotAfter  Get-Date  AddYears 15    Windows 8  Windows Server 2012 R2   In Powershell on these systems the parameters -FriendlyName and -NotAfter do not exist  Simply remove them from the above command line  Open Powershell with Administrator privileges   New-SelfSignedCertificate  -DnsName    dev local    dev local    localhost   -CertStoreLocation cert  LocalMachine My   An alternative is to use the method for older Windows version below  which allows you to use all the features of Win 10 for cert creation     Older Windows versions   My recommendation for older Windows versions is to create the cert on a Win 10 machine  export it to a  PFX file using an mmc instance  see  Trust the certificate  below  and import it into the cert store on the target machine with the old Windows OS  To import the cert do NOT right-click it  Although there is an  Import certificate  item in the context menu  it failed all my trials to use it on Win Server 2008  Instead open another mmc instance on the target machine  navigate to  Certificates  Local Computer    Personal   Certificates   right click into the middle pane and select All tasks   Import    The resulting certificate  Both of the above commands create a certificate for the domains localhost and   dev local  The Win10 version additionally has a live time of 15 years and a readable display name of  Dev Cert   dev local  dev local  localhost    Update  If you provide multiple hostname entries in parameter -DnsName  as shown above  the first of these entries will become the domain s Subject  AKA Common Name   The complete list of all hostname entries will be stored in the field Subject Alternative Name  SAN  of the certificate   Thanks to  BenSewards for pointing that out    After creation the cert will be immediately available in any HTTPS bindings of IIS  instructions below    Trust the certificate  The new cert is not part of any chain of trust and is thus not considered trustworthy by any browsers  To change that  we will copy the cert to the certificate store for Trusted Root CAs on your machine   Open mmc exe  File   Add Remove Snap-In   choose  Certificates  in left column   Add   choose  Computer Account    Next    Local Computer       Finish   OK  In the left column choose  Certificates  Local Computer    Personal   Certificates   Find the newly created cert  in Win 10 the column  Friendly name  may help   Select this cert and hit Ctrl-C to copy it to clipboard   In the left column choose  Certificates  Local Computer    Trusted Root CAs   Certificates   Hit Ctrl-V to paste your certificate to this store  The certificate should appear in the list of Trusted Root Authorities and is now considered trustworthy   Use in IIS  Now you may go to IIS Manager  select the bindings of a local website   Add   https   enter a host name of the form  myname dev local  your cert is only valid for   dev local  and select the new certificate   OK     Add to hosts  Also add your host name to  C  Windows System32 drivers etc hosts   127 0 0 1  myname dev local   Happy  Now Chrome and IE should treat the certificate as trustworthy and load your website when you open up https   myname dev local   Firefox maintains its own certificate store  To add your cert here  you must open your website in FF and add it to the exceptions when FF warns you about the certificate     For Edge browser there may be more action needed  see further down    Test the certificate  To test your certs  Firefox is your best choice   Believe me  I m a Chrome fan-boy myself  but FF is better in this case    Here are the reasons      Firefox uses its own SSL cache  which is purged on shift-reload  So any changes to the certs of your local websites will reflect immediately in the warnings of FF  while other browsers may need a restart or a manual purging of the windows SSL cache  Also FF gives you some valuable hints to check the validity of your certificate  Click on Advanced when FF shows its certificate warning  FF will show you a short text block with one or more possible warnings in the central lines of the text block       The certificate is not trusted because it is self-signed    This warning is correct  As noted above  Firefox does not use the Windows certificate store and will only trust this certificate  if you add an exception for it  The button to do this is right below the warnings      The certificate is not valid for the name       This warning shows  that you did something wrong  The  wildcard  domain of your certificate does not match the domain of your website  The problem must be solved by either changing your website s  sub- domain or by issuing a new certificate that matches  In fact you could add an exception in FF even if the cert does not match  but you would never get a green padlock symbol in Chrome with such a combination   Firefox can display many other nice and understandable cert warnings at this place  like expired certs  certs with outdated signing algorithms  etc  I found no other browser that gave me that level of feedback to nail down any problems    Which  sub- domain pattern should I choose to develop   In the above New-SelfSignedCertificate command we used the wildcard domain   dev local    You may think  Why not use   local   Simple reason  It is illegal as a wildcard domain  Wildcard certificates must contain at least a second level domain name     So  domains of the form   local are nice to develop HTTP websites  But not so much for HTTPS  because you would be forced to issue a new matching certificate for each new project that you start   Important side notes    Valid host domains may ONLY contain letters a trough z  digits  hyphens and dots  No underscores allowed  Some browsers are really picky about this detail and can give you a hard time when they stubbornly refuse to match your domain mot  r head dev local to your wildcard pattern   dev local  They will comply when you switch to motoer-head dev local  A wildcard in a certificate will only match ONE label    section between two dots  in a domain  never more    dev local  matches  myname dev local  but NOT other myname dev local   Multi level wildcards      dev local  are NOT possible in certificates   So other myname dev local can only be covered by a wildcard of the form   myname dev local  As a result  it is best not to use a forth level domain part  Put all your variations into the third level part  This way you will get along with a single certificate for all your dev sites    The problem with Edge  This is not really about self-signed certificates  but still related to the whole process  After following the above steps  Edge may not show any content when you open up myname dev local  The reason is a characteristic feature of the network management of Windows 10 for Modern Apps  called  Network Isolation    To solve that problem  open a command prompt with Administrator privileges and enter the following command once   CheckNetIsolation LoopbackExempt -a -n Microsoft MicrosoftEdge 8wekyb3d8bbwe   More infos about Edge and Network Isolation can be found here  https   blogs msdn microsoft com msgulfcommunity 2015 07 01 how-to-debug-localhost-on-microsoft-edge

User · Answer

Another easy way to generate a self signed certificate is to use Jexus Manager      Choose a server node in the Connections panel  In the middle panel  click Server Certificates icon to open the management page  Under Actions panel  click    Generate Self-Signed Certificate       menu item    https   www jexusmanager com en latest tutorials self-signed html

User · Answer

Another option is to create a self-signed certificate that allows you to specify the domain name per website  This means you can use it across many domain names   In IIS Manager   Click machine name node Open Server Certificates In Actions panel  choose  Create Self-Signed Certificate  In  Specify a friendly name     name it  Dev  select  Personal  from type list  Save   Now  on your website in IIS      Manage the bindings Create a new binding for Https  Choose your self-signed certificate from the list Once selected  the domain name box will become enabled and you ll be able to input your domain name

[iis] How to create a self-signed certificate for a domain name for development?

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