HTTPS Workshop notes

Workshop Outline

Register domain and add your email now
Introduction to Basic Concepts
Create a login keypair
Get a server (Digital Ocean)
Point the domain at your server (an A Record)
Log in and install stuff
Buy the certificate with SSLMate
Tell nginx to serve that domain and your certificate
You did it
Some advanced configuration
In conclusion

Get a domain name

Preference: a .com.

Can't use: a .org, .io, or .voyage. Possibly others.

Creating a keypair

ssh-keygen

Make a server and point your domain

Digital Ocean
Upload your keypair.
Make a new droplet with your hostname.
Find the IP address.
Go to your DNS provider and point your A record to it.

Configuring your server

ssh -i /path/to/key [email protected]

Install nginx:

add-apt-repository ppa:nginx/stable
apt-get update
apt-get -y install nginx

Installing SSLMate

SSLMate install instructions

wget -P /etc/apt/sources.list.d https://sslmate.com/apt/ubuntu1404/sslmate.list
wget -P /etc/apt/trusted.gpg.d https://sslmate.com/apt/ubuntu1404/sslmate.gpg
apt-get update
apt-get -y install sslmate

Buying the certificate

SSLMate buying instructions

sslmate buy [yourdomain.com]

Turn the site on

Download the example config:

cd /etc/nginx/sites-enabled
wget https://gist.githubusercontent.com/konklone/eed13074734b46f901a4/raw/0013afd16864c1600130255b4ba4debdfd7e8a8c/mysite.conf

Edit it to add your domain and key path:

nano mysite.conf

Make a little landing page.

cd /usr/share/nginx/html
rm index.html
nano index.html

Check it's okay:

nginx -t

Restart nginx:

service nginx restart

If there's time:

Advanced nginx SSL config options.
Making the key and CSR yourself:

openssl genrsa -aes256 -out my-private-encrypted.key 2048
openssl rsa -in my-private-encrypted.key -out my-private-decrypted.key
openssl req -new -sha256 -key my-private-decrypted.key -out mydomain.com.csr

Getting the cert through a traditional CA, e.g. Namecheap domain certificates..

Other HTTPS setups

CloudFlare
Amazon S3
GitHub Pages

konklone/https-workshop.md