Removing the Password on an Apache SSL Certificate

Wednesday, August 20th, 2008  Linux

Every once in a while I run across an SSL Cert with an included password. Although the security is great automating an environment or an Apache restart with required interaction is problematic.

Here is an example of the interaction with a password included SSL Cert:

[root@w2 conf.d]# /etc/init.d/httpd restart
Stopping httpd:                                            [  OK  ]
Starting httpd: Apache/2.2.8 mod_ssl/2.2.8 (Pass Phrase Dialog)
Some of your private key files are encrypted for security reasons.
In order to read them you have to provide the pass phrases.
 
Server chrisschuld.com:443 (RSA)
Enter pass phrase:
 
OK: Pass Phrase Dialog successful.

And here is how you remove the password:

[root@w2 conf]# openssl rsa -in chrisschuld.com.key -out chrisschuld.com.key.nopass

5 Comments so far »

  1.  

    tom3k said

    July 21 2009 @ 2:41 am

    thanks!

    was looking for the one step that took care of this… everywhere else lists it in the whole ssl cert creation process…

    ciao!

  2.  

    Michael said

    July 22 2009 @ 11:11 am

    Hi, thanks. i have been looking for this solution for a long time…

  3.  

    Brian said

    September 14 2009 @ 1:06 pm

    Thanks so much for your help. This is an answer I too have been looking for some time. Much Appreciated!

  4.  

    David said

    November 25 2009 @ 3:01 am

    Exactly what I was looking for. Thanks

    You then need to change /etc/httpd/conf.d/ssl.conf so that it uses the new key

  5.  

    Joshua said

    January 22 2010 @ 5:20 pm

    Awesome. Thank you very much. The simple answer to a simple problem… without four thousand other things. More 1 paragraph blog posts!

Comment RSS · TrackBack URI

Leave a comment

Name: (Required)

Email: (Required)

Website:

Comment: