Configure Apache Web Server with SSL/HTTPS (for Linux)

Before you can configure Xinet on an Apache Web server on Linux, you must enable SSL/HTTPS on Linux.

Apache allows the enabling of SSL simultaneously (with HTTP) by simply installing the mod_ssl module:

yum install mod_ssl

If you want to run HTTP exclusively and provide your own certifications, follow these steps (for a Redhat Linux 7.2 server):

1.	Install the ssl module

yum install mod_ssl

2.	Create SSL key file

openssl genrsa -out mydomain.key 1024

3.	Create SSL certificate file

openssl req -new -key mydomain.key -x509 -out mydomain.crt

4.	Put the key and certificate files in the following locations

/etc/httpd/conf/ssl.key/mydomain.key

/etc/httpd/conf/ssl.crt/mydomain.crt

5.	Edit the ssl.conf file. It should be located in /etc/httpd/conf.d/ssl.conf

6.	Uncomment these lines:

SSLRandomSeed startup file:/dev/urandom 256

SSLRandomSeed connect builtin

DocumentRoot "/var/www/html"

7.	Edit this line so it contains the path to the ssl key file:

SSLCertificateKeyFile /etc/httpd/conf/ssl.key/mydomain.key

8.	Edit this line so it contains the path to the ssl certificate file:

SSLCertificateFile /etc/httpd/conf/ssl.crt/mydomain.crt

9.	Save your changes to the ssl.conf file.

10.	Edit the httpd.conf file

11.	Look for this line:

<Directory "/var/www/htm"l>

12.	Add these lines just below it:

SSLRequireSSL

SSLOptions +StrictRequire

13.	Restart httpd/apache

apachectl restart