Install & Enable HTTPS on Apache Server

by do son · September 15, 2017

First of all, you need to have a website that can run under http. This tutorial is about Apache2, and other servers may have similar settings.

Get a free SSL certificate.
Now Let’s Encrypt offers free SSL certificate service. So we need to register an account. Then, after landing you can apply for a free SSL certificate. Finally save the requested certificate locally.
Configure the Apache2 environment
This will automatically install the SSL plugins required for Apache2.
```
sudo a2enmod ssl

sudo a2ensite default-ssl
```
Create a default SSL site that will be in /etc/apache2/sites-enabled/ to generate a configuration file.

In /etc/apache2/creating two folders
```
cd /etc/apache2

sudo mkdir ssl.key

sudo mkdir ssl.crt
```
Upload *.crt to ssl.crt folder, upload *.ssl to ssl.key folder.
Next, we start the configuration default-ssl.conf file
```
sudo vim /etc/apache2/sites-enabled/default-ssl.conf
```
In which the following attributes are changed
```
SSLCertificateFile     /etc/apache2/ssl.crt/2_***.crt

SSLCertificateKeyFile /etc/apache2/ssl.key/3_***.key

SSLCertificateChainFile /etc/apache2/ssl.crt/1_***.crt
```
After the change is successful, restart the Apache2 service
```
sudo service apache2 restart
```
Finally, try to access https://YourDomain

Enable https by default
On .htaccess file, add

RewriteEngine On

RewriteBase /

RewriteCond %{SERVER_PORT} !^443$

RewriteRule ^(.*)$ https://YourDomain/ [L]

After the creation is complete, change /etc/apache2/apache2.conf

AllowOverride All