Serving SSL from localhost on IIS 5 on Windows XP using Self-Signed certificates

I’ve probably glossed past this a few times, but it turns out getting SSL working on your dev machine is less painful than you’d think…

  1. install iis60rkt.exe from http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=56fc92ee-a71a-4c73-b628-ade629c89499&DisplayLang=en on your local machine. It’s intended for IIS 6.0 but it works
    in IIS 5.1.
  2. Select custom install if you only want to use SelfSSL.
    Otherwise, install all.
    There’s a lot of other useful stuff there.
  3. Select Programs –> IIS Resources –> SelfSSL –> SelfSSL
    command prompt
  4. In the command prompt, you’ll see a list of all possible
    command parameters..
    1. Type ‘selfssl.exe
      /V:60’     This indicates the certificate is valid for 60 days
    2. Type Y to answer the
      question “Do you want to replace the SSL settings for site 1 (default website)
      ?
    3. Type ‘iisreset’ to
      restart IIS.

If your browser prompts something like ‘Certification Authority not recognised’ (in Firefox), just put the url in the exception list or override the warnings when viewing the page.


Thanks to Ricky for getting this info together.