About Self-Signed Certificates
A self-signed certificate is an SSL/TLS certificate that is signed by its own private key rather than a trusted Certificate Authority (CA). They are commonly used for:
- Development & Testing: Local development servers, staging environments
- Internal Services: Intranet applications, internal APIs
- Learning: Understanding PKI and certificate concepts
Note: Self-signed certificates will trigger browser warnings and should not be used for production public-facing websites. For production, use certificates from trusted CAs like Let's Encrypt.
How to Use
- Enter the Common Name (CN) - typically your domain name
- Fill in optional organization details for the certificate subject
- Select the signature algorithm and key size
- Set the validity period (default: 365 days)
- Click Generate Certificate
- Download individual files or use Download All (ZIP)
Installing the Certificate
Apache:
SSLCertificateFile /path/to/certificate.crt
SSLCertificateKeyFile /path/to/private_key.key
Nginx:
ssl_certificate /path/to/certificate.crt;
ssl_certificate_key /path/to/private_key.key;
Node.js:
const https = require('https');
const fs = require('fs');
const options = {
key: fs.readFileSync('private_key.key'),
cert: fs.readFileSync('certificate.crt')
};
https.createServer(options, app).listen(443);