How to Create a Self-Signed Certificate in Windows 10

Use a command-line tool or third-party software

by Tashreef Shareef

Tashreef Shareef

Windows & Software Expert

Tashreef Shareef is a software developer turned tech writer. He discovered his interest in technology after reading a tech magazine accidentally. Now he writes about everything tech from... read more

Updated on October 5, 2022

Reviewed by Vlad Turiceanu

Vlad Turiceanu

Editor-in-Chief

Passionate about technology, Windows, and everything that has a power button, he spent most of his time developing new skills and learning more about the tech world. Coming... read more

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Adding an SSL certificate to your website is a straightforward process. You can either purchase a third-party SSL certificate and renew it on a yearly basis or use an open-source SSL certificate and create a corn job to renew it every month.

However, for development and testing, you can explore the possibility of creating a self-signed SSL certificate in Windows.

Creating a self-signed certificate is an excellent alternative to purchasing and renewing a yearly certification for testing purposes. You can make use of OpenSSL to generate a self-signed certificate for this purpose.

In this article, we explore how to create a self-signed certificate in Windows 10. The later part of the article also explores how to deploy the self-signed certificate to client machines.

Quick Tip:

Although you can save some money if you create a self-signed certificate, it may lead to a permanent block of your website for some users. This is caused by the certificate error message and in most cases cannot be undone.

Besides that, the process is time-consuming and really not worth your time which also has a certain cost. We strongly recommend using a 3rd party SSL service provider.

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How can I generate a self-signed certificate in Windows 10?

1. Use OpenSSL to create a self-signed certificate

1.1 Install OpenSSL

1. Download the latest OpenSSL windows installer from a third-party source.
2. Run the installer. OpenSSL requires Microsoft Visual C++ to run. The installer will prompt you to install Visual C++ if it is already not installed.
3. Click Yes to install.
4. Run the OpenSSL installer again and select the installation directory.
5. Click Next.
6. Open a command prompt and type OpenSSL to get OpenSSL prompt.

1.2 Create a public/private key file pair

1. Make sure you have OpenSSL installed.
2. Open Command Prompt and create a new directory on your C drive:
   C: >cd Test
3. Now go to the new directory:
   C: Test>
4. Now you need to type the path of the OpenSSL install directory followed by the RSA key algorithm.
   C: Test>c:opensslbinopenssl genrsa -out privkey.pem 4096
5. Run the following command to split the generated file into separate private and public key files:

C: Test>c:opensslbinopenssl ssh-keygen -t rsa -b 4096 -f privkey.pem

Once you have the public/private key generated, follow the next set of steps to create a self-signed certificate file on a Windows system.

1.3 Generate a self-signed certificate

1. Open a Command Prompt window.
2. Go to the directory that you created earlier for the public/private key file.
   C: Test>
3. Enter the path of the OpenSSL install directory, followed by the self-signed certificate algorithm:
   C: Test>c:opensslbinopenssl req -new -x509 -key privkey.pem -out cacert.pem -days 1095

1. Follow the on-screen instruction.
2. You need to enter information about your organization, region, and contact details to create a self-signed certificate.

If you would rather use PowerShell to create a self-signed certificate, follow the next set of steps instead.

2. Generate a Self-Signed Certificate on Windows using PowerShell

1. Press the Windows key, and type Powershell in the search box. Right-click on the PowerShell app and select Run as Administrator.

2. Run the New-SelfsignedCertificate command, as shown below:$cert = New-SelfSignedCertificate -certstorelocation cert:localmachinemy -dnsname testcert.windowsreport.com

3. This will add the certificate to the locater store on your PC. Replace testcert.windowsreport.com with your domain name in the above command.

4. Next, create a password for your export file:$pwd = ConvertTo-SecureString -String ‘password!’ -Force -AsPlainText

5. Replace Password with your own password.

6. Enter the following command to export the self-signed certificate:$path = 'cert:localMachinemy' + $cert.thumbprint Export-PfxCertificate -cert $path -FilePath c:tempcert.pfx -Password $pwd

7. In the above command replace c:temp with the directory where you want to export the file.

8. You can import the exported file and deploy it for your project.

Another great option to generate a self-signed certificate on Windows 10 is to use a command-line tool such as Powershell.

With it, you don’t need to download any third-party software. You just need to input the appropriate command line in Powershell, and the tool will do the job for you.

How to add my self-signed certificate into the curls ca file on Windows 10?

1. Once you have created a self-signed certificate and installed it, you may want cURL to trust the certificate as well.
2. The later versions of cURL don’t include a trusted listed a .pem file. You can download the .pem file and type the following command in the php.ini file.
   curl.cainfo = "C:xamppphpcacert.pem"
3. Once done, you need to get cURL to trust your self-signed certificate. To do this, open your server.crt file. The file is created when you created your self-signed certificate.
4. Copy all the content of the server.crt file and then add it to the cacert.pem file.

Creating a self-signed certificate using OpenSSL can be done using the Command Prompt or PowerShell. Being able to create your self-signed certificate allows you to create a temporary certificate for in-development projects that require an SSL certificate.

We hope you managed to generate a self-signed certificate on your Windows 10 PC. Let us know in the comments section which method you prefer to use.

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