I’m trying to create a self-signed wildcard SSL certificate for use on a number of development and test servers running IIS 6. Following various guides has led to a couple ways of generating the certificates, but I haven’t had any luck getting it to work. The most successful ways I’ve had were following this OpenSSL guide and using makecert.exe like so:
makecert.exe -r -b 01/01/2009 -e 01/01/2042 -sr LocalMachine -ss MY -a sha1 -n CN='*.example.com' -sky exchange -pe -eku 1.3.6.1.5.5.7.3.1 -sy 12 -sp 'Microsoft RSA SChannel Cryptographic Provider' wildcard.cer
Both of which generate certificates that IIS 6 will accept, but when I actually try to view the site I get the following error in firefox:
Data Transfer Interrupted
The connection to dev.example.com was interrupted while the page was loading.
IE just gives:
Internet Explorer cannot display the webpage
Most likely causes:
- You are not connected to the Internet.
- The website is encountering problems.
- There might be a typing error in the address.
This error happens whether I try to access it by domain name, machine name, localhost, local ip, or loopback ip.
So…how can I create a self-signed wildcard cert that IIS 6 will work with? Or how can I fix the problems I’m experiencing with the ones I’ve already created?
You can use the IIS 6 Resource Kit provided by MS, an command line app called SelfSSL. It can generate the SSL key and import it into your IIS installation.
IIS 6 Resource Kit