Free SSL certificate

SSL certificates can provide encryption over TCP between the server and the browser. Until recently, I did not have much of a need for it since my work was done on the Intranet. I did have many websites and tools that I was self-hosting on AWS, but I really never had to add any sort of protection.

I always knew that it would be a “must-have” if I was ever wanted to open my applications to other users or even put more personal content on the web.

Anyhow, now that I had some time to play around with it, I am shocked to see how easy it was to get started with SSL… and it was FREE!

To tell you the truth, I’m mostly writing this blog as a reminder on how to do it since it was all done in less than 30 minutes!

Certificate Authority (CA)

Only a CA can issue a certificate that you will need to enable HTTPS. For my websites, I went with Let’s Encrypt. We will not need to read more on this website as they have a client software called Certbot who will do all the work for us!

If you go to the Certbot website, you’ll be able to enter the software (webserver) and the system (OS) that you are using. In my case, I’m using Apache on Ubuntu 18.04. Once you select your software/system, you’ll be provided instructions on how to do it.

I’ll repeat some of the instructions here, just so I can remember the steps that I took, but I encourage you to go directly on their website. They did an excellent job at detailing every step and it went without an itch.

I did have some issues afterward but it was related to the port 443 used by SSL.

I’ll explain the steps that I took to solve this issue later on.

Certbot (visit website)

These are the steps that I took… for a detailed explanation, go to their website!

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install software-properties-common
sudo add-apt-repository universe
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:certbot/certbot
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install certbot python-certbot-apache
sudo certbot --apache

Voila! It should now be working for you… well.. almost.

Opening the port 443 on AWS

I needed to open the port 443 in the AWS Lightsail console for my instance. To do so, click on the vertical-three-dots icon of your instance and click Manage. From there, go to the Networking tab. We will change the firewall to make sure that we can communicate with port 443 of our instance.

• Click “+ Add another”
• Select HTTPS from the dropdown.
• Click Save

I also had the firewall enabled within my instance, so I had to open that post also:

To see if the firewall (utw) is active:

sudo ufw status

To open the https port:

sudo ufw allow https

Limited time only!

Sadly, this certificate will expire every 3 months, but Certbot made it quite easy to renew. Here’s an example for renewing that you can run right now (it’s a dry-run only, without effectively renewing the certificate).

sudo certbot renew --dry-run

If you entered your email correctly while setting it up, you should receive a notification when it’s about time to renew. You will then need to re-enter this command without the --dry-run flag.