DEV Community

Yaroslav Polyakov
Yaroslav Polyakov

Posted on • Edited on

Your own Certificate Authority (CA) in ONE simple command

You can find many instructions how to make certificates with OpenSSL. OpenSSL is very good except... it's too complex.

Showcert is OpenSSL for humans, much simpler to use and it has gencert utility to generate certificates. Very easy.

Generate self-signed cert with simple command

gencert example.com www.example.com
Enter fullscreen mode Exit fullscreen mode

This will make self-signed cert. Easy, isn't it?

Your own CA

Generate CA certificate (1 command):

gencert --ca MyCA
Enter fullscreen mode Exit fullscreen mode

Thats all! Now, you can import generated MyCA.pem file to browsers and generate signed certificates for sites:

gencert --cacert MyCA.pem --cakey MyCA.key example.com
Enter fullscreen mode Exit fullscreen mode

What could be simpler?

Install showcert and play for yourself.

Top comments (0)

A Workflow Copilot. Tailored to You.

Pieces.app image

Our desktop app, with its intelligent copilot, streamlines coding by generating snippets, extracting code from screenshots, and accelerating problem-solving.

Read the docs

👋 Kindness is contagious

Engage with a sea of insights in this enlightening article, highly esteemed within the encouraging DEV Community. Programmers of every skill level are invited to participate and enrich our shared knowledge.

A simple "thank you" can uplift someone's spirits. Express your appreciation in the comments section!

On DEV, sharing knowledge smooths our journey and strengthens our community bonds. Found this useful? A brief thank you to the author can mean a lot.

Okay