Lighttpd

Setting up a simple SSL configuration¶

Setting up a simple SSL configuration with Lighttpd is quite easy. Though this method should be used with care because this setup will only provide proper encryption, not authentication! The user will be presented with a query whether to accept the certificate or not!

First, go into the SSL Certs directory and do:

cd /etc/ssl/certs
openssl req -new -x509 -keyout lighttpd.pem -out lighttpd.pem -days 365 -nodes
chown www-data:www-data lighttpd.pem
chmod 600 lighttpd.pem

Please mind the fact that not every operating system uses www-data to runs it's webserver (lighttpd), so this may vary.

Then edit /etc/lighttpd/lighttpd.conf and add:

$SERVER["socket"] == ":443" {
  ssl.engine = "enable" 
  ssl.pemfile = "/etc/ssl/certs/lighttpd.pem" 
}

After restarting the webserver, you should be able to access your webserver through https.

Because without ssl.ca-file configured, firefox will not accept this certificate, even if it's valid certificate.

See Also

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• [http://trac.lighttpd.net/trac/wiki/Docs%3ASSL Secure HTTP]