help needed with setting up apache2 + https

I am working with Linux Redhat 8 and Apache 2, and would like to set
up my server to allow access to a certain directories only with
encrypted password autorization, and using ecrypted (https) data
transfer. My users are all known within the company. I have spent
several days now looking through mod_ssl and apaceh documentation, and
can't really find what I need regarding the configuration.

I have managed to set up my httpd.conf to deny access from certain IP
addresses to my secure directories if not using https (this from the
example under the Apache 2 documentation). But I have no idea what I
need to do to get communication working under https. Here the
documentation is a bit lacking.

Can someone help me get started? I guess I understand that a
certificate is needed in order for https to work (is that correct?)
even though I know all my users. All I really want is encrypted login
with a password and https, but if I do need to set up a certificate
(signed by me is good enough) can someone explain how that is done?
And how httpd.conf (or ssl.conf) should be set up in this case?
Pointing me towards a tutorial or a good How To dealing with getting
https to work would be helpful.

Thanks in advance!
Steve, Denmark

As far as setting up https://, and creating certificates...

http://www.devside.net has a guide on integrating mod_ssl with Apache
2.0.xx and the info on creating the proper keys. win32 and linux.

On Thu, 13 Nov 2003 13:33:38 -0800, TowerOfPower wrote:

> As far as setting up https://, and creating certificates...
>
> http://www.devside.net has a guide on integrating mod_ssl with Apache
> 2.0.xx and the info on creating the proper keys. win32 and linux.

Thanks to the poster of the above link.

However, unless I am really blind, this link doesn't offer me much help.
Keeping to the Linux specific stuff, I have found a nice example of an
"ssl-enabled" httpd.conf file, but missing here are all the details about
the ssl bit (which I suppose are where they should be in ssl.conf which
was not shown on the web page).

In other words, this is as far as I got already. I can't find any example
or discussion about creating proper keys. There are a lot of guides here
which are specific for Windows installations, but I haven't looked at
these.

Can you give me a few hints where on this link I might find some help?

Thanks
Steve

> However, unless I am really blind, this link doesn't offer me much help.
> Keeping to the Linux specific stuff, I have found a nice example of an
> "ssl-enabled" httpd.conf file, but missing here are all the details about
> the ssl bit (which I suppose are where they should be in ssl.conf which
> was not shown on the web page).

It is me again, answering my own post. After looking again at the
devside.net link, I found the description of how to set up the
certificates in Linux. It was within the section for building Apache,
which I overlooked at first since I'm working with everything put in place
after a RedHat 8 install (I didn't build anything to get this working).

Anyway, whew, I now have gotten https communiation to work. And I now
found out why I could not get it to work before! Upon install, I asked for
the medium security firewall to be set up, and then forgot all about it.
Fortunately, a test of my https connection with Mozilla told me the
connection was being refused, and a test locally with

openssl s_client -connect servername:443

worked fine. So this made me suspicious that something was blocking my
port 443 requests. I turned off the firewall for a test, and it works!

/Steve