+The StartSSL certificates last for a year. You can check the expiry date of your current certificate/s by going to your site and if you're using Firefox then click on the lock icon, select "more information" then "view certificate". +
+ ++Make sure that you have the StartSSL certificate which was created when you initially made an account. You did save it somewhere safe, didn't you? If it's not installed into your browser then in Firefox go to Menu/Preferences/Advanced/View Certificates. Make sure the "Your Cerificates" tab is selected and click "import", then import the StartSSL certificate. +
+ ++Now go to startssl.com and click on the keys icon on the right hand side to log in. Select the Control panel then Validations Wizard and choose Email address validation. Enter your email address, then wait for the validation email to show up in your inbox. It will contain a code when you can then enter. +
+ ++Once your email is validated then go to Validations Wizard and choose Domain name validation. Enter your domain name and select postmaster@yourdomainname. After a while you should receive a validation email and you can then enter the code. +
+ ++Log into the Freedombone and become the root user. Now we can generate a new certificate request as follows. +
+ +export HOSTNAME=mydomainname.com +openssl genrsa -out /etc/ssl/private/$HOSTNAME.new.key 2048 +chown root:ssl-cert /etc/ssl/private/$HOSTNAME.new.key +chmod 440 /etc/ssl/private/$HOSTNAME.new.key +mkdir /etc/ssl/requests ++
+Now make a certificate request as follows. You should copy and paste the whole of this, not just line by line. +
+ +openssl req -new -sha256 -key /etc/ssl/private/$HOSTNAME.new.key -out /etc/ssl/requests/$HOSTNAME.csr ++
+For the email address it's a good idea to use postmaster@mydomainname. +
+ ++Use a random 20 character password, and keep a note of it. We'll remove this later. +
+ ++View the request with: +
+ +cat /etc/ssl/requests/$HOSTNAME.csr
+
++On the StartSSL site select Certificates Wizard then Web server SSL/TLS Certificate. You can then click on "skip" and then copy and paste the encrypted request into the text entry box. You may now need to wait a few hours for a confirmation email indicating that the new certificate was created. +
+ ++Select Tool Box and then Retrieve Certificate from the list. Make sure to choose the one with the correct expiration date. Copy the text. +
+ +mv /etc/ssl/private/$HOSTNAME.new.key /etc/ssl/private/$HOSTNAME.key +editor /etc/ssl/certs/$HOSTNAME.crt ++
+Delete any existing contents then paste the public key from the StartSSL site. Save and exit. Then run the following commands: +
+ +mkdir /etc/ssl/roots +mkdir /etc/ssl/chains +wget "http://www.startssl.com/certs/ca.pem" --output-document="/etc/ssl/roots/startssl-root.ca" +wget "http://www.startssl.com/certs/sub.class1.server.ca.pem" --output-document="/etc/ssl/chains/startssl-sub.class1.server.ca.pem" +wget "http://www.startssl.com/certs/sub.class2.server.ca.pem" --output-document="/etc/ssl/chains/startssl-sub.class2.server.ca.pem" +wget "http://www.startssl.com/certs/sub.class3.server.ca.pem" --output-document="/etc/ssl/chains/startssl-sub.class3.server.ca.pem" +ln -s "/etc/ssl/roots/startssl-root.ca" "/etc/ssl/roots/$HOSTNAME-root.ca" +ln -s "/etc/ssl/chains/startssl-sub.class1.server.ca.pem" "/etc/ssl/chains/$HOSTNAME.ca" +cp "/etc/ssl/certs/$HOSTNAME.crt" "/etc/ssl/certs/$HOSTNAME.crt+chain+root" +test -e "/etc/ssl/chains/$HOSTNAME.ca" && cat "/etc/ssl/chains/$HOSTNAME.ca" >> "/etc/ssl/certs/$HOSTNAME.crt+chain+root" +test -e "/etc/ssl/roots/$HOSTNAME-root.ca" && cat "/etc/ssl/roots/$HOSTNAME-root.ca" >> "/etc/ssl/certs/$HOSTNAME.crt+chain+root" ++
+Remove the certificate password, so if the server is rebooted then it won't wait indefinitely for a non-existant keyboard user to type in a password. +
+ +openssl rsa -in /etc/ssl/private/$HOSTNAME.key -out /etc/ssl/private/$HOSTNAME.new.key +cp /etc/ssl/private/$HOSTNAME.new.key /etc/ssl/private/$HOSTNAME.key +shred -zu /etc/ssl/private/$HOSTNAME.new.key ++
+Create a bundled certificate which joins the certificate and chain file together. +
+ +cat /etc/ssl/certs/$HOSTNAME.crt /etc/ssl/chains/startssl-sub.class1.server.ca.pem > /etc/ssl/certs/$HOSTNAME.bundle.crt ++
+And also add it to the overall bundle of certificates for the Freedombone. This will allow you to easily install the certificates onto other systems. +
+ +cp /etc/ssl/certs/$HOSTNAME.bundle.crt /etc/ssl/mycerts
+cat /etc/ssl/mycerts/*.crt > /etc/ssl/freedombone-bundle.crt
+tar -czvf /etc/ssl/freedombone-certs.tar.gz /etc/ssl/mycerts/*.crt
+
++To avoid any possibility of the certificates being accidentally overwritten by self-signed ones at a later date you can create backups. +
+ +cp /etc/ssl/certs/$HOSTNAME* /etc/ssl/backups/certs/ +cp /etc/ssl/private/$HOSTNAME* /etc/ssl/backups/private/ +chmod -R 400 /etc/ssl/backups/certs/* +chmod -R 400 /etc/ssl/backups/private/* ++
Almost everywhere on the web you will read that self-signed certificates are worthless. They bring up scary looking browser warnings and gurus will advise you not to use them. Self-signed certificates are quite useful though. What the scary warnings mean - and it would be good if they explained this more clearly - is that you have an encrypted connection established but there is no certainty about who that connection is with. The usual solution to this is to get a "real" SSL certificate from one of the certificate authorities, but it's far from clear that such authorities can be trusted. There have been various scandals involving such organisations, and it does not seem plausible to assume that they are somehow immune to the sort of treatment which Lavabit received. So although most internet users have been trained to look for the lock icon as an indication that the connection is secured that belief may not always be well founded.
@@ -570,17 +719,17 @@ For now a self-signed certificate will probably in most cases protect your commuThat pledge is utterly worthless. Years ago people trusted Google in the same sort of way, because they promised not be be evil and because a lot of the engineers working for them seemed like honest types who were "on our side". Post-nymwars and post-PRISM we know exactly how much Google cared about the privacy and security of its users. But Google is only one particular example. In general don't trust pledges made by companies, even if the people running them seem really sincere.
Welcome to the world of email. Email is really the archetypal decentralized service, developed during the early days of the internet. In principle anyone can run an email server, and that's exactly what you're doing with Freedombone. Email is very useful, but it has a big problem, and that's that the protocols are totally insecure. That made it easy for spammers to do their thing, and in response highly elaborate spam filtering and blocking systems were developed. Chances are that your emails are being blocked in this way. Sometimes the blocking is so indisciminate that entire countries are excluded. What can you do about it? Unless you control the block list at the receiving end probably you can't do anything. There is zero accountability for such blocking, and you can't just contact someone and say "hey, I'm not a spammer". This system works well for the big internet companies because it effectively centralises email to a few well-known brand names and keeps any independent servers out.