How to set up https (SSL) on a Centos environment

eFront hosted by Epignosis

There are three major cases when setting up an SSL certificate for your system, depending on your requirements. These are:

Having a single domain name without any branches. e.g: efront.example.com
Having a few specific domain names for branches. e.g: alpha.efront.example.com, beta.efront.example.com, gamma.efront.example.com
Having any number of domain names. e.g: *.efront.example.com

For the first case, you may either issue a certificate at your own expense at some commercial provider or eFront support team may issue a let’s encrypt certificate for you, which is also the default action for new eFront customers.

Regarding the second and third case, you necessarily need to issue a certificate at your own expense to whatever provider (Certificate Authority, CA) you prefer.

In any case, if you need to issue a certificate in some commercial provider you will need an CSR file to do so. Contact our support team to send you the necessary CSR file but in order for eFront support team to produce such a file, the following information is required.

Domain names (e.g: efront.example.com or *.efront.example.com)
Email
Organization name
Organizational unit (optional)
City
State or Province
Country

So, please include the above information in your request towards our support team.

Once you have done so, we will be able to send you the CSR file, so you may proceed with issuing your certificate.

eFront hosted on your server

If you host eFront on your own server, then there are two major ways to set up an SSL certificate. Those are:

Producing an SSL certificate with a CSR file
Producing an SSL certificate with a PFX file

Note!: The following commands require advanced permissions so it will be useful if you would perform the following process as a superuser. (on a linux based command line type

sudo -s

SSL certificate with a CSR file

The steps you need to take in order to produce an SSL certificate with a CSR file are the following:

From the command line type the following command
```
openssl req -new -newkey rsa:2048 -nodes -keyout <sitename>.key -out <sitename>.csr
```
During this step, you will be asked to provide information such as Country, State or Province etc. The result of the above command is a private key .key file, which will be used in the next step
Use the .csr produced by the previous steps to issue your certificate with the CA provider of your choice. Once your provider completes the process you will get back two files (a certificate and a chain file).
Create a new directory in your file system to store the certificate files.
```
mkdir /var/www/vhosts/certs
```
Notice!!! You may use some other path for the above directory.
Move the .key file produced in step 1 to the directory certs
```
mv <sitename>.key /var/www/vhosts/certs
```

Move the certificate and chain files (from step 2) to the folder certs

mv <sitename>.crt /var/www/vhosts/certs

mv <sitename>_ca.crt /var/www/vhosts/certs

Change the permissions of the certs directory and its files as following
```
chmod -R 400 /var/www/vhosts/certs
```
Change the ownership of the certs directory and its files as following
```
chown -R root:root /var/www/vhosts/certs 
```
Install mod_ssl for your Apache server
```
yum install mod_ssl
```

Modify your vhosts file as following

<VirtualHost <ip_address>:443>
   ServerName <sitename>
   DocumentRoot "/var/www/vhosts/<efront-directory>/"

   SSLEngine on
   SSLProtocol -ALL -SSLv3 +TLSv1
   SSLCipherSuite ALL:!ADH:RC4+RSA:+HIGH:!MEDIUM:!LOW:!SSLv2:!EXPORT
   SSLCertificateFile /var/www/vhosts/certs/<sitename>.crt
   SSLCertificateKeyFile  /var/www/vhosts/certs/<sitename>.key
   SSLCertificateChainFile /var/www/vhosts/certs/<sitename>_ca.crt

   <Directory "/var/www/vhosts/<efront-directory>/">
      AllowOverride All
   </Directory>
</VirtualHost>

If you would like your domain name to only support https access add the following lines to your hosts file

<VirtualHost <ip_address>:80>
   ServerName <sitename>
   DocumentRoot "/var/www/vhosts/<efront-directory>/"
                 
   <Directory "/var/www/vhosts/<efront-directory>/">
      AllowOverride All
   </Directory>
      
   RewriteEngine on
   ReWriteCond %{SERVER_PORT} !^443$
   RewriteRule ^/(.*) https://%{HTTP_HOST}/$1 [NC,R,L]
</VirtualHost>

Modify your firewall settings (/root/myfirewall) to allow incoming connections to port 443
After modifying your firewall settings do not forget to "run" your firewall settings again
```
./myfirewall
```
Make sure the the file /etc/httpd/conf/httpd.conf contains the following line, and if not add it
```
NameVirtualHost *:443
```
Edit the file /etc/sysconfig/httpd and add the following line
```
export OPENSSL_NO_DEFAULT_ZLIB=1
```
Restart your apache server|

SSL certificate with a PFX file

The steps you need to take in order to produce an SSL certificate with a PFX file are the following:

Create a new directory in your file system to store the certificate files.
```
mkdir /var/www/vhosts/certs
```
Notice!!! You may use some other path for the above directory.

Run the following command

openssl pkcs12 -in <sitename>.pfx -clcerts -nokeys -out <sitename>.crt

Run the following command

openssl pkcs12 -in <sitename>.pfx -nocerts -nodes  -out <sitename>.key

Run the following command
```
openssl pkcs12 -in <sitename>.pfx -out <sitename>-ca.crt -nodes -nokeys -cacerts
```
Notice!!! If this step produces an empty file do not include it in your .conf file
Continue with the process described in the section "SSL certificate with a CSR file" starting from step 6

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