Trouble getting https going in Slack 9.1

Gates1026 · 03-04-2004, 09:53 AM

I just got a web server up and running with my work Slackware 9.1 machine and am having some problems getting https working with it. When I used Fedora, it pretty much worked "out of the box", so I haven't had much experience setting it up. I am guessing that I am getting a "connection refused" error when trying to connect to https://<myip> b/c I dont have a self signed certificate set up on my machine. Can anyone point me to some slackware documentation or explain it so that I can get this up and running? Thanks for all the help in advance

flyfishin · 03-04-2004, 10:18 AM

Is the server even running? You can get that message if the service isn't running. To start, open up a terminal and log in as root and then go to the /etc/rc.d directory. You should have an rc.httpd script there. Is it executable? ls -l rc.httpd will tell you. If there are no x's then it isn't. To make it executable type chmod +x rc.httpd. This will make it executable and will ensure that your web server starts the next time you reboot your box. You can then start/stop/restart the service. To do this you issue this command in a terminal as root:

/etc/rc.d/rc.httpd commandname

where commandname is either start stop or restart. Issue a restart and see if it tells you if the service started. If is successfully started you should see this output

/usr/sbin/apachectl start: httpd started

Then go to http://localhost in a browser.

Gates1026 · 03-04-2004, 10:36 AM

The server is running as I can connect to http://localhost or http://<ipaddress>. I know that is all fine and working, the service starts at bootup. When I try the https command on localhost or with the ipaddress, I get a "the connection was refused when trying to connect to localhost".

flyfishin · 03-04-2004, 10:54 AM

Oops. Didn't catch the s in the https. A quick google search on apache ssl slackware came up with an article on this site. Within that article is this link:

http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...hlight=OpenSSL

Gates1026 · 03-04-2004, 11:29 AM

I followed the instructions and created the private and public key files and certificate. I am still getting the connection was refused error. Anyone have any ideas what it could be?

flyfishin · 03-04-2004, 11:44 AM

What do your apache logs say?

Do you have apache listening on port 443?

Gates1026 · 03-04-2004, 12:02 PM

It isnt listening on that port (I didnt even think to look). Nmap shows nothing on 443. I think it should be though, http is running and here is out of my mod_ssl.conf file:

##
## SSL Support
##
## When we also provide SSL we have to listen to the
## standard HTTP port (see above) and to the HTTPS port
##
<IfDefine SSL>
Listen 80
Listen 443
</IfDefine>

Where would I have to enable it?

flyfishin · 03-04-2004, 12:10 PM

/etc/apache/httpd.conf

On my box it is the very last set of lines. Look for the section "mod_ssl configuration setings". Uncomment the Include /etc/apache/mod_ssl.conf line. That should do it.

I didn't think about the logs either until I spent 20 minutes on an apache issue this morning and a coworker asked "Did you check the logs?". Doh.

Gates1026 · 03-04-2004, 12:20 PM

I have that line uncommented:

# PACKAGES REQUIRED: apache (N series) and openssl (N series)
#
Include /etc/apache/mod_ssl.conf

I havent seen anything else in the logs that would be a reason for it not to be listening on port 443

Justin_Time · 03-04-2004, 12:36 PM

Are you sure you created your key's allright and placed them in the correct directory's? )/etc/apache/ssl.xxx)

Code:

openssl genrsa -des3 -out server.key 1024
openssl req -new -key server.key -out server.csr
openssl x509 -req -days 60 -in server.csr -signkey server.key -out server.crt
cp server.key server.key.org
openssl rsa -in server.key.org -out server.key
chmod 400 server.key

Have you got in you mod_ssl.conf a line like <VirutalHost yourip:443>
Have you started your apache with ssl ?

Code:

/usr/sbin/apachectl startssl

What does /var/log/apache/ssl_*
What does /var/log/apache/error_log
What does /var/log/apache/access_log say?

flyfishin · 03-04-2004, 10:14 PM

Well, I setup one of my new boxes according to the directions given so far and got the same 'Connection refused' error as you. I did some more digging and found out that the default /etc/rc.d/rc.httpd script uses /usr/sbin/apachectl start. To get the server to come up in SSL mode you use /usr/sbin/apachectl-mod_ssl. So this is how you get ssl mode going:

apachectl-mod_ssl startssl

So to summarize:

1. Generate a server.key, server.csr, and server.crt file. Copy those into the ssl.key, ssl.csr, and ssl.crt subdirectories respectively in /etc/apache/ .
2. Uncomment the Include line in /etc/apache/httpd.conf that includes the mod_ssl.conf file
3. Change the line in /etc/rc.d/rc.httpd from
/usr/sbin/apachectl start

to

/usr/sbin/apachectl-mod_ssl startssl

Those steps worked perfectly on my machine.

Gates1026 · 03-05-2004, 01:42 PM

Thanks so much for all your help

You are the man. It works perfectly now.

flyfishin · 03-05-2004, 10:34 PM

Great. Glad I could be helpful.