Photo by Todd Ehlers
Communication between your browser and a webserver is insecure unless the URL uses “https://”. That indicates the data is encrypted. But, in addition, the hierarchy of trust is supposed to ensure the owner of the website is the party doing the encrypting. There was a recent news article where that trust was comprosmised. So there are no guarantees. And it doesn’t do any of us any good when the thieves are the ones encrypting the communication.
But this encryption and trust model is what secures most online banking transactions. If you have a webserver, and want to use https, you will need the SSL certificate that includes you in the hierarchy of trust. I had thought this service always cost some money. But StartSSL is offering the most basic level of verification in an automated way and providing the SSL certificate for free.
To get your free certificate:
- Click Sign up
- Fill in all fields in the sign up form and click Continue
- Copy the authentication code that was just emailed to you
- Paste it into Complete Registration form and click Continue
- Choose your needed level of security and click Continue
- Approve the pop up trying to install a security certificate in your brower
- Click Install
- If prompted, allow the outside connection through your firewall from the certificate authority
- Follow these instructions for backing up your security key (4. How do I backup my client certificates?)
- Click Finish
- Go to the StartSSL Control Panel
- Click the link to Validations Wizard
- Choose Domain Name Validation ( you can also do email address validation, but this tutorial doesn’t cover that.)
- Enter the URL of your domain name to be validated
- Select an email from the list to continue validation
- Click Continue
- Copy the authentication code that was just emailed to you
- Paste it into Complete Validation form and click Continue
- Click Finish
- Now click the Certificate Wizard tab
- Choose Webserver SSL/TLS Certificate
- Click Continue
- Choose and enter a password and Keysize
- Copy your new SSL key to a safe place as directed
- Click Continue
- Choose your domain name from the list
- Click Continue
- You must choose a subdomain. I used www. Click Continue
- StartSSL is ready to process the certificate. Click Continue
- Copy your PEM encoded certificate to a safe place as directed
- Follow the installation instructions for your certificate!
