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Step-by-Step Guide: Configuring Nginx with HTTPS on Localhost for Secure Web Application Testing

Fadi Shaar
3 min readMay 12, 2023

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Are you looking to configure Nginx with HTTPS on localhost to test your web application securely? If so, you’ve come to the right place. In this article, I would like to share my personal experience and insights gained after spending several hours of experimenting and troubleshooting. By following the steps outlined here, you will be able to establish a secure local environment for testing your web application using HTTPS.

Prerequisites

Before we begin, make sure you have the following:

  • Nginx is installed on your Ubuntu.
  • OpenSSL is installed on your Ubuntu.

Step 1: Generate Root Certificate and Key

Generate an RSA private key of size 2048:

openssl genrsa -des3 -out rootCA.key 2048
Generate a root certificate valid for two years:

openssl req -x509 -new -nodes -key rootCA.key -sha256 -days 730 -out rootCert.pem

Step 2: Generate Certificate Signing Request (CSR)

Generate a private key for your certificate:

openssl genrsa -out cert.key 2048
Use the private key to create a certificate…

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Fadi Shaar
Fadi Shaar

Written by Fadi Shaar

Passionate machine learning engineer with a Ph.D in computer engineering specializing in computer vision.

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