Configure Nginx With SSL
Posted on by John Mathews

How To Configure Nginx With SSL

Transport Layer Security (TLS) and Secure Socket Layer (SSL) provide an easy method to encrypt connections between end-users and web servers. SSL uses a certificate authority system to provide identity verification in order to prevent websites from falsely claiming to be another organization or website. This tutorial shows you how to set up strong SSL security on the nginx webserver. In this tutorial we will learn how to install and configuration of Nginx with SSL on your Linux server.

Configure Nginx With SSL

Required:

  • Assuming you’ve installed webserver nginx.
  • I use Namecheap as a registrar, and they resale SSL Certs from a number of other companies, including Comodo.

Step 1. Create a directory

 mkdir -p /etc/nginx/ssl/wpcademy.com

Step 2. Generating Your SSL Key and CSR

Prior to purchasing a cert, you need to generate a private key, and a CSR file (Certificate Signing Request). You’ll be asked for the content of the CSR file when ordering the certificate. For Common Name enter your intended domain name without ‘www’ i.e. wpcademy.com. If it’s a Wildcard SSL, use *.wpcademy.net.

 openssl req -nodes -newkey rsa:2048 -keyout wpcademy.net.key -out wpcademy.com.csr

Step 3. Create a certificate bundle

After purchase the certificate, You’ll eventually get an email with your SSL Certificate. It contains a zip file with the following:

  • AddTrustExternalCARoot.crt
  • COMODORSAAddTrustCA.crt
  • COMODORSADomainValidationSecureServerCA.crt
  • wpcademy.com.crt
 cat wpcademy_net.crt AddTrustExternalCARoot.crt COMODORSADomainValidationSecureServerCA.crt COMODORSAAddTrustCA.crt >> ssl-bundle.crt

Once create a certificate bundle you can move it to your Nginx SSL directory.

 mv ssl-bundle.crt /etc/nginx/ssl/wpcademy.com/

Step 4. Configure the Certificate for nginx

Go to nginx virtual host configuration, using SSL with nginx requires a modification to the listen directive and three ssl-related directives as shown in the following examples:

 nano /etc/nginx/conf.d/ssl.conf
server {
   listen 443 ssl spdy;
   server_name www.wpcademy.com wpcademy.com;
   root /var/www/wpcademy.com/public_html;
   index index.php index.html index.htm;
   server_tokens off;

   #SSL CONF
   ssl on;
   ssl_certificate /etc/nginx/ssl/wpcademy.com/ssl-bundle.crt;
   ssl_certificate_key /etc/nginx/ssl/wpcademy.com/wpcademy.us.key;


   #SSL
   ssl_session_cache shared:SSL:20m;
   ssl_session_timeout 10m;

   ssl_prefer_server_ciphers On;
   ssl_protocols TLSv1 TLSv1.1 TLSv1.2;
   ssl_ciphers ECDH+AESGCM:DH+AESGCM:ECDH+AES256:DH+AES256:ECDH+AES128:DH+AES:ECDH+3DES:DH+3DES:RSA+AESGCM:RSA+AES:RSA+3DES:!aNULL:!MD5:!DSS;

   ssl_stapling on;
   ssl_stapling_verify on;
   resolver 8.8.8.8 8.8.4.4 valid=300s;
   resolver_timeout 10s;

   # permalink
   location / {
      try_files $uri $uri/ /index.php?$args;
   }

   # php-script handler
   location ~ \.php$ {
      fastcgi_index index.php;
      fastcgi_pass 127.0.0.1:9000;
      root    /var/www/wpcademy.com/public_html;
      fastcgi_param SCRIPT_FILENAME /var/www/wpcademy.com/public_html$fastcgi_script_name;
      include /etc/nginx/fastcgi_params;
   }

location  ~ /\.ht {
               deny  all;
           }
    }

Step 5. Redirect HTTP Virtual Hosts to HTTPS

 return 301  https://wpcademy.com$request_uri;

Step 6. Restart/reload nginx

 /etc/init.d/nginx restart

Congratulation’s! You have successfully installed Nginx with SSL. Thanks for using this tutorial for installing and configuration Nginx with SSL on Linux system. For additional help or useful information, we recommend you to check the official Nginx web site

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