How to create a secure (HTTPS) OS X webserver

How to create a secure (HTPPS) OS X webserver: "How to create a secure (HTPPS) OS X webserver"

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This is really cool. I had no idea that everything you need to generate a self signed cert comes builtin with Mac OS X. Yet another thing that makes me thankful that Apple chose a UNIX core. Sure beats the hell I went through the first time I tried to generate a self signed cert using SSLeay on Solaris. Had to build everything from scratch, way too much work for just generating certs to test with. At the time I was working on X509 based client authentication for email and websites. Great technology, flawed horribly by trying to do too much. We'd probably be far better off from a security perspective if the whole thing had simply done away with the stupid signing chain. People then would have been able to generate their own certs for use in secure auth to everything without worrying about software complaining about unknown root CAs. The whole chain of trust thing is completely useless when just using the certs for authentication.

Posted by Kimbro Staken

Thursday Dec 2, 2004 at 6:16 AM