Heroku SSL Cert

gistfile1.txt

How to setup Heroku Hostname SSL with GoDaddy SSL Certificate

The following tutorial explains how to use Heroku's new 'Hostname SSL' option on your Heroku project.  Before we begin, let's list what we're using here:

    * Heroku Hostname SSL
    * GoDaddy Standard SSL Certificate
 
I. Getting a GoDaddy SSL Certificate (Part I)
 
1. Purchase a GoDaddy Standard SSL Certificate
 
GoDaddy sells Standard SSL Certificates for anywhere from $12.99/year to $49.99/year.  I highly recommend you do a search for 'cheap ssl' on Google and see if there are any advertisements for discounted GoDaddy Standard SSL Certificates.  I was able to buy my certificate for $12.99/year this way.
 
2. After you complete your purchase, GoDaddy will give you a credit that you can trade for a certificate.  Make the trade and click on 'Manage Certificate' next to your new certificate.  This will bring you to a Credits control panel where we will click 'Request Certificate' next to your new certificate later on when we are ready to setup your certificate.
 
II. Creating a Certificate Signing Request (CSR)
 
Note: To create an SSL certificate, you must first generate and submit a Certificate Signing Request (CSR) to the Certification Authority (CA) (i.e. GoDaddy). The CSR contains your certificate-application information, including your public key. The CSR will also create your public/private key pair used for encrypting and decrypting secure transactions.
 
These instructions are based on my experience using a Mac OS X laptop.  The following probably won't work if you are not working from a unix-based system (i.e. Mac OS X / Ubuntu Linux / etc.).
 
Steps to create a CSR:
 
1. Make a new directory to hold your project's SSL-related stuff.  It doesn't really matter where you put this, but I recommend not putting it in your rails project (i.e. alongside app, config, db, etc.), as it will get included in your git repository if you do.  Rather, I put it in a folder that is one level above my rails project.
 

    mkdir ssl-cert

 
2. Move to your newly created folder
 

    cd ssl-cert

 
3. Use OpenSSL to generate an RSA host key ('host.key') using the triple DES encryption, with a 2,048-bit key length (as required by GoDaddy).  Triple DES is just DES times three, but is more secure against brute force attacks because of its longer length.
 

    openssl genrsa -des3 -out host.key 2048

 
It will ask you for a pass phrase.  This should be a secret password.  Don't forget the pass phrase you set, as we will need it later.
 
4. Use OpenSSL to generate a new self-signed certificate ('host.csr') using the host key we just created.  This is what you'll be sending to GoDaddy to model your new SSL after.
 

    openssl req -new -key host.key -out host.csr

 
You will be prompted with a bunch of questions.  Answer all of them, except the last two 'extra' attributes are optional.  Here are example responses:
 

    Country Name (2 letter code) [AU]:US
    State or Province Name (full name) [Some-State]:California
    Locality Name (eg, city) []:San Francisco
    Organization Name (eg, company) [Internet Widgits Pty Ltd]:Your Company Name
    Organizational Unit Name (eg, section) []:secure.yourdomain.com
    Common Name (eg, YOUR name) []:secure.yourdomain.com
    Email Address []:[email protected]
    
    Please enter the following ‘extra’ attributes
    to be sent with your certificate request

    A challenge password []:
    An optional company name []:
 
It is very important you don't mistype anything here, as you can't change this information without buying a new SSL certificate.  'Organizational Unit Name' and 'Common Name' must be the hostname you are using on Heroku.  I highly recommend using the 'secure.yourdomain.com' host, as you will need to set a separate CNAME DNS record to route your secure traffic.
 
III. Getting a GoDaddy's SSL Certificate (Part II)
 
1. Return to where we left off with GoDaddy.  You should have clicked 'Request Certificate' and see a form where you need to answer the following questions:
 

    Where is your certificate going to be hosted? Third Party

    Enter your Certificate Signing Request (CSR) below: [copy contents of 'host.csr' here]

    Select your certificate issuing organization: GoDaddy

    Is this certificate for Intel vPro? No

 
2. Verify everything and then click through to finish.  You should now be able to view and download your GoDaddy SSL certificate from GoDaddy from the 'Manage Certificates' section.
 
IV. Prepare SSL Certificate for Heroku
 
1. Download your new SSL certificate from GoDaddy's website into your 'ssl-cert' directory that we created in step I.  You will get two files from GoDaddy: 'secure.yourdomain.com.crt' and 'gd_bundle.crt'.  'secure.yourdomain.com.crt' is your new SSL certificate.  'gd_bundle.crt' contains the SSL issuing certificate chain back to the root SSL certificate.
 
2. Combine 'secure.yourdomain.com.crt' and 'host.key':
 

    cat secure.yourdomain.com.crt host.key > host.pem

 
3. Remove pass phrase from the public key certificate (required by Heroku)
 

    openssl rsa -in host.pem -out nopassphrase.pem

    openssl x509 -in host.pem >>nopassphrase.pem

 
You will be asked for the pass phrase you set in step I.  I told you to remember it!
 
4. Open 'nopassphrase.pem' in a text editor and delete the 'private key' section:
 

    -----BEGIN RSA PRIVATE KEY-----

    ...

    -----END RSA PRIVATE KEY-----

 
5. Combine 'gd_bundle.crt' and 'nopassphrase.pem':
 

    cat nopassphrase.pem gd_bundle.crt > public.pem

 
'gd_bundle.crt' is a chain file that links your certificate to a original trusted host certificate that GoDaddy owns.
 
6. Remove pass phrase from the private key certificate (required by Heroku)
 

    openssl rsa -in host.key -out private.key

 
You will be asked for the pass phrase you set in step I.  I told you to remember it!
 
You might be asking yourself: What do all of these file extensions mean?  Well, here you go:

*.csr -- Certificate Signing Request used for submission to signing authorities that issue SSL certificates
*.crt -- Public key of a certificate (same as a *.pem file, but with different extension).  May include a chain of certificates back to the host certificate.  This is what you'll get from GoDaddy when you download a purchased certificate.
*.pem -- Public key of a certificate (same as a *.crt file, but with different extension).  May include a chain of certificates back to the host certificate.  This is what you'll get from GoDaddy when you download a purchased certificate. 
*.key -- Private key of a certificate
 
V. Add SSL Certificate to Heroku
 
1. Go to the root of your Heroku project folder and add the nopassphrase pem and key to Heroku:
 

    heroku certs:add ../ssl-cert/public.pem ../ssl-cert/private.key

 
You may need to adjust the paths to point to your 'nopassphrase.pem' and 'nopassphrase.key' files.
 
2. If you haven't done so already, you must enable the Heroku custom domains add-on and add 'secure.yourdomain.com' to Heroku's list of domains:
 

    heroku addons:add custom_domains:basic

    heroku domains:add secure.yourdomain.com

 
3. Next, you need to add Heroku's 'Hostname SSL' solution:
 

    heroku addons:add ssl:endpoint

 
This will add a $20/month (as of the time of this writing) fee to your Heroku bill for SSL.
 
VI: Setting up your DNS to work with Heroku Hostname SSL
 
1. You should recieve an email from heroku within a few minutes of adding the ssl:hostname addon.  You need to add a CNAME record to your DNS that points to the AWS host in the email you receive.  This should be pretty self explanatory, but if you have any questions, search for 'adding a CNAME record' in Google and you'll see lots of good guides.
 
2. Test that 'host secure.yourdomain.com' outputs 'something.amazonaws.com'.  If it does, you're all set.
 
You should now be able to go to 'https://secure.yourdomain.com' and not see any errors or security warnings.
 
What is going on behind the scenes
 
When a user visits your site using 'https://secure.yourdomain.com', they're hitting your GoDaddy CNAME record, which points to an 'something.amazonaws.com' address which effectively routes the request to Heroku's grid, and a secure connection gets established from there following the standard SSL handshake process.