Apache2 SSL on Windows

1. Install OpenSSL
OpenSSL is free, but the main site only
distributes source code. They have a
binary distributions page, but it only
links to an installer made by Shining
Light Productions. I haven't tried that,
because I don't want any more crap in
Add/Remove Programs.

Instead, I download the latest Openssl-

version-Win32.zip from hunter,
which is presently Openssl-0.9.8b-
Win32.zip. It's about 1mb and is
usually about the second link on the
page. Don't get the links that say "Apache" in them just yet, be patient.

Unzip the file somewhere on your computer and copy all the libeay32.dll and ssleay32.dll
to your Windows\System32 directory. If you've dealt with SSL at all before, especially as a
developer, you might already have copies of these there. Keep whatever is newest.

For a basic sanity check, open a command prompt and

go to the directory where you unzipped OpenSSL.
Run openssl version and it should report both the
version of OpenSSL, matching what was embedded in
the ZIP you downloaded, as well as when it was built.
Generally the more recent, the better.

You'll also need an openssl.cnf which is an

OpenSSL configuration file that, for some reason, doesn't come with Hunter's distribution.
Download this one or this one and save it to the folder where you unzipped OpenSSL.
2. Create Self-Signed Certificate
Several files related to your your SSL certificate will be created in this section, so choose a
common base name to use. In my examples I use "blarg", which I've italicised to show it should
be replaced by your choice. In practice, I recommend extracting the essence from your domain
name; for example, if I was creating a certificate for https://www.neilstuff.com/ then I'd use
"neilstuff".

Open up a command prompt and go to the directory where you unzipped OpenSSL and run the
following command to create a new certificate request:
 openssl req -config openssl.cnf -new -out blarg.csr -keyout blarg.pem

You'll be prompted to answer many questions, which ones depend on your openssl.cnf file; all
except two of these can be left blank:

• PEM pass phrase: Password associated with the private key (blarg.pem) you're
generating. Since we'll be removing this for the benefit of Apache 2.0.X, I suggest using
something like "none" or "password".
• Common Name: The fully-qualified domain name associated with this certificate. In my
example, I use www.blarg.com which means I damn well better use that certificate on
https://www.blarg.com/. For personal security, testing, or intranets it's okay for this to
not quite match -- just be prepared to deal with warnings from web browsers and such.

Now it's time to create a non-password protected key for Apache 2.0.X by executing the
following:

openssl rsa -in blarg.pem -out blarg.key

The only thing you'll be asked is the password you had used. Your resulting KEY file is essential
the same thing as the PEM, just not password protected.

Before we go on, delete the .rnd file. This contains entropy information which could be used by
malicious people to try and crack your certificate later on (if they get a hold of it).

Finally, run the following command to create an X.509 certificate, e.g. the kind of certificate that
SSL likes to munch:
 openssl x509 -in blarg.csr -out blarg.cert -req -signkey blarg.key -days 365

Congratulations, you've created a self-signed certificate! Keep the KEY and CERT files some place
safe, we'll be using them soon.
3. Install Apache 2.0.X w/ mod_ssl.so
You can skip this section if you already have Apache 2 installed with mod_ssl.so.

Back to hunter to download the latest

Apache2 binary distribution for Windows
with SSL, which is presently
Apache_2.0.59-Openssl_0.9.8b-
Win32.zip. It's about 6.5mb and is usually
about the third link on the page.

Create a folder for this such as C:\Program

Files\Apache Group\Apache2 and unzip the contents there.

Open conf\httpd.conf in a text editor and ...

• Change the line that says ServerRoot "c:/apache" to indicate the folder where you
unzipped Apache2, i.e. ServerRoot "c:/Program Files/Apache Group/Apache2".
The quotes are important, and remember to change all backslashes (\) to forward ones (/).

• Replace both instances of "c:/apache/htdocs" with your web root path.

If you want to have Apache2 listen on a different port than 80 (the default), change the Listen
and ServerName directives in conf\httpd.conf.

Open a command prompt, get to the bin directory (under the folder you created), and run the
following command to install Apache2 as a service:

apache -k install

Anytime you wish to start Apache2, you can go to the same directory and run apache -k start.
Restarting and stopping are much the same except you'll specify "restart" and "stop" after the
"-k". It's also possible to just use the NET START and NET STOP commands you're probably
familiar with; the name of the service for those commands will be "Apache2".
3. Enable SSL in Apache 2.0.X
Open up conf\httpd.conf in a text editor and look for the line LoadModule ssl_module
modules/mod_ssl.so and remove any pound sign (#) characters preceding it. If you don't see
that line where it probably should be (among the other LoadModule lines), then your installation
may not have mod_ssl.so ... can't help you there!

Also, while you're in conf\httpd.conf, make sure the following lines exist somewhere (they
should if you got Apache2 from hunter):

<IfModule mod_ssl.c>
Include conf/ssl.conf
</IfModule>

Create a directory under conf called ssl and copy the blarg.key and blarg.cert files there;
the ones you created in step 2.

Crack open conf\ssl.conf in a text editor

and ...

• Remove the <IfDefine SSL> and

matching </IfDefine> lines.
• Correct the DocumentRoot,
ServerName, and ServerAdmin
lines as per your needs. If you want
the https version of your site to
point to the same web root, make DocumentRoot match the exact value in
conf/httpd.conf. The other two values will be reported by your server to any HTTPS
clients, so make sure they're valid if you're doing this for public consumption.
• Finally it's time to use your self-signed certificate! The lines you'll want to change are
SSLCertificateFile and SSLCertificateKeyFile which should point to your CERT
and KEY files respectively.
If IIS is installed, it will listen on port 443 (default for HTTPS) and drop any connections made to
it. Apache2 doesn't appear to report a problem when it can't listen for SSL, so you might just see
that weird dropped connection behavior. I recommend using a port besides 443 if you're running
Apache2 side-by-side with IIS.

Restart the Apache2 service and voila! You got Apache2 running with SSL on Windows!