12/17/13 How to Create a Self Signed Certificate in IIS 7

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How to Create a Self Signed Certificate in IIS 7

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SSL Certificates in SSL is an essential part of securing your IIS 7.0 site and
Google Chrome creating a self-signed certificate in IIS 7 is much easier to do
than in previous versions of IIS. SSL certificates enable the
How to Create and encryption of all traffic sent to and from your IIS web site,
Install an Apache Self preventing others from viewing sensitive information. It uses
Signed Certificate public key cryptography to establish a secure connection. This
means that anything encrypted with a public key (the SSL
How to Create A Self certificate) can only be decrypted with the private key and vice versa.
Signed Certificate
Free SSL Certificates When to Use an IIS Self Signed Certificate
from a Free Certificate
Authority An SSL certificate has multiple purposes: distributing the
public key and, when signed by a trusted third-party,
How to Create a Self verifying the identity of the server so clients know they
Signed Certificate using aren’t sending their information (encrypted or not) to the Never use a self signed
Java Keytool wrong person. A self signed certificate is a certificate that
is signed by itself rather than a trusted third party. This
certificate on an e-
Login: commerce site or any site
means you can't verify that you are connecting to the right
Click here to login server because any attacker can create a self signed that transfers valuable
certificate and launch a man-in-the-middle attack. Because
of this, you should almost never use a self signed certificate
personal information like
on a public IIS server that requires anonymous visitors to credit cards, social security
connect to your site. However, self signed certificates can numbers, etc.
be appropriate in certain situations:

Self signed certificates can be used on an intranet. When clients only have to go through a local
intranet to get to the server, there is virtually no chance of a man-in-the-middle attack.
Self signed certificates can be used on an IIS development server. There is no need to spend
extra cash buying a trusted certificate when you are just developing or testing an application.
Self signed certificates can be used on personal sites with few visitors. If you have a small
personal site that transfers non-critical information, there is very little incentive for someone to attack
the connection.

Just keep in mind that visitors will see a warning in their browsers (like the one below) when connecting to
an IIS site that uses a self signed certificate until it is permanently stored in their certificate store. Never
use a self signed certificate on an e-commerce site or any site that transfers valuable personal
information like credit cards, social security numbers, etc.

Generate Your IIS Self Signed Certificate

Now you know when to use an IIS self signed certificate and when not to. Now let’s create one: (Click
here to hide or show the images)

1. Click on the Start menu, go to Administrative Tools, and click on Internet Information Services

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12/17/13 How to Create a Self Signed Certificate in IIS 7
(IIS) Manager.

2. Click on the name of the server in the Connections column on the left. Double-click on Server
Certificates.

3. In the Actions column on the right, click on Create Self-Signed Certificate...

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12/17/13 How to Create a Self Signed Certificate in IIS 7

4. Enter any friendly name and then click OK.

5. You will now have an IIS Self Signed Certificate valid for 1 year listed under Server Certificates. The
certificate common name (Issued To) is the server name. Now we just need to bind the Self signed
certificate to the IIS site.

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12/17/13 How to Create a Self Signed Certificate in IIS 7

Bind the Self Signed Certificate

1. In the Connections column on the left, expand the sites folder and click on the website that you want
to bind the certificate to. Click on Bindings... in the right column.

2. Click on the Add... button.

3. Change the Type to https and then select the SSL certificate that you just installed. Click OK.

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12/17/13 How to Create a Self Signed Certificate in IIS 7

4. You will now see the binding for port 443 listed. Click Close.

5. Now let's test the IIS self signed certificate by going to the site with https in our browser (e.g.
https://site1.mydomain.com). When you do, you should see the following warning stating that "The
security certificate presented by this website was issued for a different website's address" (a name
mismatch error).

This is displayed because IIS always uses the server's name (in this case WIN-PABODPHV6W3) as the
common name when it creates a self signed certificate. This typically doesn't match the hostname
that you use to access the site in your browser (site1.mydomain.com). For many situations where IIS
self signed certificates are used, this isn't a problem. Just click "Continue to this web site" each time.
However, if you want to completely get rid of the error messages, you'll need to follow the next two
steps below.

Generate a Self Signed Certificate with the Correct Common Name

This step is only required if you want to get rid of the warning message displayed because the common
name on the self signed certificate doesn't match the website's hostname. In order to resolve this problem,
we'll need to create the self signed certificate using the same method that is used to create a self signed
certificate in IIS 6.0 (with SelfSSL instead of through IIS).

1. Download the Internet Information Services (IIS) 6.0 Resource Kit Tools and install SelfSSL 1.0 (if you
do a Custom install you can uncheck everything except for SelfSSL). Once it is installed, click on the
Start menu, go to IIS Resources, then SelfSSL, and run SelfSSL.

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2. Paste in the following command and replace site1.mydomain.com with the hostname of your IIS site. If
you receive the erorr "Error opening metabase: 0x80040154", just ignore it. We will be manually binding
the certificate to the website.
SelfSSL /N:CN=site1.mydomain.com /V:1000

3. After the command is finished, you will have an IIS self signed certificate with the correct common
name listed in the Server Certificates section of IIS. Now follow the instructions above to bind the
certificate to your IIS website.

4. After you have bound the new certificate to your IIS site, visit it with https in your web browser and
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12/17/13 How to Create a Self Signed Certificate in IIS 7
you will encounter another error: "The security certificate presented by this website was not issued
by a trusted certificate authority." (the SSL Certificate Not Trusted error)

Don't worry; this is the last error we will need to fix. This is a normal error for self signed certificates
because the certificate is signed by itself instead of a trusted SSL provider. All visitors to the site will
see that error unless they import the self-signed certificate into their Trusted Root Certification
Authorities store (or the appropriate SSL certificate store for the browser they are using). You can
easily add the IIS self signed certificate to the store on the server by following the the instructions
below. If you need to import the certificate on another Windows machine, just follow the instructions
on how to Move or copy an SSL certificate from a Windows server.

Add the Self Signed Certificate to Trusted Root Certificate Authorities

1. Click on the Start menu and click Run.
2. Type in mmc and click OK.

3. Click on the File menu and click Add/Remove Snap-in...

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4. Double-click on Certificates.

5. Click on Computer Account and click Next.

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6. Leave Local Computer selected and click Finish.

7. Expand the Certificates item on the left and expand the Personal folder. Click on the Certificates folder
and right-click on the self signed certificate that you just created and select Copy.

8. Expand the Trusted Root Certification Authorities folder and click the Certificates folder underneath it.
Right-click in the white area below the certificates and click Paste.

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12/17/13 How to Create a Self Signed Certificate in IIS 7

9. Now you can visit your site with https in your web browser and you shouldn't receive any errors
because Windows will now automatically trust your IIS self signed certificate.

For more information on generating an IIS self signed certificate, see the following links:

Installing an SSL Certificate in Windows Server 2008 (IIS 7.0)

Tip/Trick: Enabling SSL on IIS 7.0 Using Self-Signed Certificates
IIS Self Signed Certificates on IIS 7 – the Easy Way and the Most Effective Way

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Posted on October 23, 2010

Showing comments 1 to 20 of 25 | Next | Last

Aaron Thank you!

Posts: 23 Reply #25 on : Mon Nove m be r 04, 2013, 16:13:25

Great write up, and exactly what I was needing to set this up and do some testing!

Mike Caldwell Friggen Awesome

Posts: 23 Reply #24 on : Tue July 09, 2013, 16:02:23

thank you so damn much! I dug for hours and you gave me the few things to get my act
together and the server serving my SSL! Thanks again!

Darren Thanks!
Posts: 23 Reply #23 on : Tue May 21, 2013, 12:26:50

Worked exactly as expected.

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12/17/13 How to Create a Self Signed Certificate in IIS 7
David Adding SANs
Posts: 23 Reply #22 on : Fri January 25, 2013, 10:37:27

Can anyone tell me how to add SANs to a self signed cert using IIS7?

Jeff Quade Wow! Works Great!

Posts: 23 Reply #21 on : Sun January 06, 2013, 22:06:41

Wonderful. Works Great!

SivaKumarReddy Good Article. Working Fine.

M Reply #20 on : Tue Se pte m be r 18, 2012, 08:12:35
Posts: 23
Nice explanation and detailed procedure with screen shots is given. Thanks!

Sanjeev Sagar good

Posts: 23 Reply #19 on : Thu Se pte m be r 06, 2012, 05:42:51

thanks for this...

sanjeev

Akshay Not able download "IIS 6.0 Resource Kit Tools"

Posts: 23 Reply #18 on : Tue August 21, 2012, 04:49:00

Not able download "Internet Information Services (IIS) 6.0 Resource Kit Tools" from given
link.. Search on google but not able to find the same.
Request you to share new link.

poss2446 Re: How to Create a Self Signed Certificate in IIS 7

Posts: 23 Reply #17 on : Fri May 04, 2012, 02:33:18

Great directions. I was a bit thwarted on the command line interface but it has done my
nuts and bolts objective.

I have extensive experience dancing on someone elses box like a free website account
and stuff. This is the fist time of me actually running a true website from my own
location. So many thigs to worry about as far as exploits go.

Bryan Bowers Followed the process but the certificate does not show up
Posts: 23 Reply #16 on : Mon April 30, 2012, 16:35:16

Hi all, I followed the process (even ran as administrator) but the cert does not show up
in the IIS MMC. Any ideas? I get a failed to build the subject name blob: 0x80092023.
Would appreciate any help as client is antsy for the fix.

Robert Re: Awesome, but not working!

Posts: 2 Reply #15 on : Fri April 27, 2012, 08:25:20

Hi Rix,

Unfortunately, that is the nature of self-signed certificates. Because they are signed by
themselves, they can't be trusted until the user actively sets them to be trusted (this is
fairly easy in Firefox but more difficult in other browsers). To completely avoid warnings
and manual trust process, you'll need to get a certificate from a trusted authority.

Rix Awesome, but not working!

Posts: 23 Reply #14 on : Fri April 27, 2012, 01:49:29

I have followed all the steps but clients still get

"The security certificate presented by this website was not issued by a trusted
certificate authority."

Clients DID NOT import the self signed certificate, yet because I would like to avoid this.
I don't want to force people to follow the bulky certification import steps, I just want
them to navigate easily! So my question is: is there a way to allow the self signed
certificate to be recognized as valid WITHOUT importing in in the client trusted root
store?

Ted This is great

Posts: 23 Reply #13 on : Fri January 20, 2012, 17:07:51

Thank you!!!

Mithun Kanji Thx mate...

Posts: 23 Reply #12 on : Mon January 16, 2012, 05:32:11

Thx mate...The instructions were clear and well written...

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12/17/13 How to Create a Self Signed Certificate in IIS 7
Jeff RE: SelfSSL does nothing
Posts: 23 Reply #11 on : Mon De ce m be r 12, 2011, 18:45:38

Remember to open cmd with administrator rights, if it's doing nothing more than likely it's
because you are not running as administrator. remember even if you're logged in as
administrator, you still have to run as administrator.

Robert Re: Email address validation

Posts: 2 Reply #10 on : Fri De ce m be r 09, 2011, 07:39:09

Thanks, Mo. I fixed the email address validation issue.

Mo Email address validation

Posts: 23 Reply #9 on : Mon Nove m be r 28, 2011, 10:29:32

Also, this comment form is refusing to accept valid email addresses. My standard email
address has a "+" in the mailbox name component, so I had to use an alternate.

Mo SelfSSL does nothing

Posts: 23 Reply #8 on : Mon Nove m be r 28, 2011, 10:24:31

As far as I can tell, I followed the instructions above to the letter, but when I run the
SelfSSL command, nothing changes in my Server Certificates screen. I still have the old
certificate with the wrong hostname, and I don't have a certificate with the correct
hostname. Also, SelfSSL doesn't give me the "Error opening metabase" warning, but it
doesn't complain about anything else, either. After asking me Y/N, it just goes back to
the command prompt.

DPK Excellent
Posts: 23 Reply #7 on : Fri Nove m be r 18, 2011, 01:56:32

Very comprehensive. Just what I was looking for!

Amy Hsu Thanks a lot!

Posts: 23 Reply #6 on : Thu Se pte m be r 29, 2011, 16:14:51

Spend lots time on it. Really helps. Thanks.

Showing comments 1 to 20 of 25 | Next | Last

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