Accept HTTPS Self Certificate on Local via Apache2

Dimas Maulana Development

25-03-2018

When you’re working on a local development environment and need to accept self-signed HTTPS certificates through Apache2, you can use the following configuration in your virtual host file. This setup allows you to bypass certificate verification for local testing purposes.

Assuming you already have a virtual host set up in your Apache2 configuration, here are the steps to configure it to accept self-signed HTTPS certificates:

Enable the proxy and proxy_http modules:

Before configuring the SSL proxy, make sure the required modules are enabled. You can do this using the a2enmod command.
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sudo a2enmod proxy sudo a2enmod proxy_http

Edit your Virtual Host Configuration:

Open your virtual host configuration file. This is typically located in the /etc/apache2/sites-available/ directory and has a .conf extension, e.g., your-site.conf.

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sudo nano /etc/apache2/sites-available/your-site.conf

Inside your virtual host configuration, add or modify the following lines to enable the SSL proxy settings:

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<VirtualHost *:80>
    # ... Other Virtual Host Settings ...

    # Enable SSL Proxy
    SSLProxyEngine on
    SSLProxyVerify none
    SSLProxyCheckPeerCN off
    SSLProxyCheckPeerName off
    SSLProxyCheckPeerExpire off

    ProxyPass / https://localhost:443/
    ProxyPassReverse / https://localhost:443/
</VirtualHost>

Ensure that you replace your-site.conf with the actual filename of your virtual host configuration and adjust the ProxyPass and ProxyPassReverse directives to match your specific setup.

Save and Exit:

Save the changes to your configuration file and exit the text editor.
Enable the Virtual Host:

Enable your virtual host configuration if it’s not already enabled:
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sudo a2ensite your-site.conf
Restart Apache:

Restart Apache to apply the changes:
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sudo systemctl restart apache2

Now, your Apache2 server should accept self-signed HTTPS certificates for the specified virtual host. Be cautious when using these settings in a production environment, as they disable important security checks. These settings are primarily for local development and debugging purposes.