How to Install SSL Certificate on Apache Windows

Last updated on July 19th, 2024 at 06:23 am

SSL certificate helps you improve web traffic between client browser and your server, and increase data security. Here’s how to install SSL certificate on Apache Windows.

Table of Contents

How to Install SSL Certificate on Apache Windows

Here are the steps to install SSL certificate on Apache Windows.

1. Enable mod_ssl

mod_ssl is an Apache module required to install and manage SSL/TLS certificates. You can enable it in your Apache server by editing the main server configuration file.

Open Apache server configuration httpd.conf file at c:\Program Files\Apache Software Foundation\Apache2.2\conf\

Uncomment the following lines by removing # at their beginning:

#Loadmodule ssl_module modules/mod_ssl.so
#Include conf/extra/httpd-default.conf

Now they should appear as:

Loadmodule ssl_module modules/mod_ssl.so
Include conf/extra/httpd-default.conf

Bonus Read : How to Generate CSR for SSL Certificate

2. Get SSL Certificate

Next, get the SSL/TLS certificate bundle from your certificate authority such as Namecheap, RapidSSL, Comodo, GoDadddy, Let’s Encrypt, etc. You can also use a free SSL provider like SSLForFree.

You will get 3 files from certificate authority.

key (e.g private.key) – your key file. Don’t share this with anyone publicly
Certificate (e.g certificate.crt) – actual SSL/TLS certificate for your domain
Ca_bundle (e.g ca_bundle.crt) – Root/intermediate certificate

Bonus Read : How to Redirect non-www to www in Apache

If you are using self-signed certificate, then you can install them directly. There is no need to generate CSR and obtain certificates from public CA.

3. Apache SSL Configuration

Now that we have setup the prerequisites, we will configure SSL certificate in Apache

Download the 3 files mentioned in step 2 to c:\Program Files\Apache Software Foundation\Apache2.2\conf\

Next, open Apache SSL configuration file httpd-ssl.conf at c:\Program Files\Apache Software Foundation\Apache2.2\conf\extras

Add the following lines in VirtualHost tag before </VirtualHost> line.

SSLEngine On
SSLCertificateFile "C:/Program Files/Apache Software Foundation/Apache2.2/conf/certificate.crt"
SSLCertificateChainFile "C:/Program Files/Apache Software Foundation/Apache2.2/conf/ca_bundle.crt"
SSLCertificateKeyFile "C:/Program Files/Apache Software Foundation/Apache2.2/conf/private.key"

You VirtualHost block will look something like this

<VirtualHost _default_:443>
DocumentRoot “Your Website's Root folder location” 
ServerName www.example.com:443
SSLEngine On
SSLCertificateFile "/etc/apache2/ssl/certificate.crt"
SSLCertificateChainFile "/etc/apache2/ssl/ca_bundle.crt"
SSLCertificateKeyFile "/etc/apache2/ssl/private.key"
</VirtualHost>

In the above lines, we use 3 Apache server directives

SSLCertificateFile – Certificate CRT file path
SSLCertificateKeyFile – Private key file path
SSLCertificateChainFile – CA bundle file path

Bonus Read : How to Redirect URL to Another URL

4. Test Apache Configuration and Restart Server

Restart Apache Server using its Server Manager

Now you have installed SSL certificate in Apache web server. Open a browser and visit https:// version of your domain (e.g https://www.example.com).

You will see a lock symbol next to your URL, in browser’s address bar, indicating that your website’s SSL/TLS certificate is working properly.