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Hey Guys,

I’m assigned a new project at work which requires me to install a SSL certificate on Ubuntu 16.04 (because people will SSH into this computer), along with Apache and PHP5. Both Apache and PHP are installed perfectly fine but I’m having trouble installing the SSL Cert. Can someone help me with this?

I fallowed the below tutorial, modified the text file, but didn’t work for me. Also the text file under Sites-Available is different (even though has the similar content) and is called “default-ssl.conf”.

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OK, you don’t assign SSL to Ubuntu, you do it to the port. Remember SSL works before the connection.

So, you don’t have to assign SSL to PHP because it is a web language. You assign it to the web server (apache in this case)

For Apache you create a virtual server, with port 443 and setup the SSL directories.

I like to use Webmin for managing my Ubuntu servers. You will basically setup a virtual server with almost same settings as the non SSL, and in the SSL options you add the path to the certificate and the private file. You also want rewrite and ssl modules active in Apache

An example of the site configuration for Apache with SSL if you preffer to edit the config file

SSLEngine on
SSLCertificateFile /path/to/file/*.domain.com.pem
SSLCertificateKeyFile /path/to/file/server.key
SSLCertificateChainFile //path/to/file/ssl/[New]InstantSSL_26May.ca-bundle

Comodo has instructions how to setup too

CONTACT US - Comodo: Cloud Native Cyber Security Platform (I used comodo because it is cheaper, but whatever SSL provider you use will have instructions although they should all be similar)

To add SSL to SSH it will be a similar process. You do it from the SSH configuration, however I am not sure if you can use the same certificate since Apache would have created the certificate request for the web site, and you will have to generate a new request from SSH.

Now, lets not confuse SSL with Host SSH keys. The host keys are a user certification and authentication. It is generated per user (although you could share keys but then how do you identify the user?)

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ok, it has been a while LOL. Let me correct myself. The request is done from OpenSSL, so it might work on SSH the same cert.

However the rest still applies. You configure SSL on the web server.

Note that the video tutorial has a request for 365 days. Do you want to get a certificate for 1 year?

Also the problem with video tutorials is that you could end up copying everything and not account for specific needs (like 3 year certificate, different editors, etc). GNU/Linux is awesome in the fact that there are many ways to accomplish something. The fastest is to edit config files, but it might not the be the easiest.

I would not edit the default but instead work with virtual servers (basically a single file in sites-available per site). This makes it easier to work on sites later, and troubleshoot if there are problems. My Ubuntu server has 7 wordpress blogs running.

I am not an expert. Still pretty much a noob, but I like tinkering when possible in Linux :slight_smile:

Install Webmin Downloading and Installing | Webmin That will give you a user interface. It is not perfect but at least it can help build the skeleton file

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Easiest and fastest way to enable SSL certs is through Let’s Encrypt. Once you have your web server setup and running and ports 80 and 443 open, you run 2 commands…

sudo apt-get install python-letsencrypt-apache
sudo letsencrypt --apache

That’s it. It will walk you through a few screens for you to enter contact email address and other necessary items and presto…you have enabled SSL. I’ve never used anything as simple. Sure the certs only last for about 90 days but renewing is also just as easy…

sudo letsencrypt renew

It will even write your .conf file for you.

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