Question

Reversing Self-signed SSL Certificate

Hello -

I have used this article https://www.digitalocean.com/community/tutorials/how-to-create-a-self-signed-ssl-certificate-for-apache-in-ubuntu-16-04 to get my Ubuntu 16.04 server set up for SSL. I am going to use a security company that asks me to remove any existing SSL certificates and set-up. I was wondering the steps I need to take to reverse the above tutorial.

Thanks!

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James J • November 14, 2016
Accepted Answer

Hey there,

If you follow the reverse of that tutorial, and just do the opposite (so removing) it should work.

If you comment out / delete the following from your virtual hosts file

SSLEngine on

                SSLCertificateFile      /etc/ssl/certs/ssl-cert-snakeoil.pem
                SSLCertificateKeyFile /etc/ssl/private/ssl-cert-snakeoil.key

Or whatever you’ve named the files (I’ve just copied it from that tutorial!), once it’s working you can delete those files:

rm /etc/ssl/certs/ssl-cert-snakeoil.pem
rm /etc/ssl/private/ssl-cert-snakeoil.key

Hope this helps,

  • James
castera • November 14, 2016

Thanks for the response, James.

I also found these commands helpful in disabling SSL.

sudo a2dismod ssl sudo a2dissite default-ssl sudo service apache2 restart

And follow the prompts from the command line.

I didn’t adjust the firewall settings as I wouldn’t think it would be a bad thing to leave the option for SSL traffic.

If I’m missing something, I’m open to suggestions. As of right now, it appears to have worked.

Thanks!