Simple HTTPS Server In Python Using Self Signed Certs

So I came across a situation where I needed to boot up an https server to host some files and guess what its really very easy to do than what I imagined.

Generate self signed certificates using OpenSSL

###Generate your server key

$ openssl genrsa -des3 -out server.key 1024

You will be prompted for a password for your key. Enter, confirm and continue.

###Generate your Certificate Signing Request (CSR)

$ openssl req -new -key server.key -out server.csr

You will be prompted again for your key password. Enter the one you created from step 1 above. You can then accept the defaults for all of the prompts you are presented with except the Common Name. This is key, and what makes the enhanced certificate validation happy. Since we are doing local development your common name will be localhost.

Common Name (e.g. server FQDN or YOUR name) []:localhost

###Generate your Certificate Lastly we need to create our certificate. Again, use your key password and you will be all set.

$ openssl x509 -req -days 1024 -in server.csr -signkey server.key -out server.crt

###Generate a pem file

$ cat server.crt server.key > server.pem

Python implementation of server: —-

#!/usr/bin/python

import BaseHTTPServer, SimpleHTTPServer
import ssl

httpd = BaseHTTPServer.HTTPServer(('localhost', 4443), SimpleHTTPServer.SimpleHTTPRequestHandler)
httpd.socket = ssl.wrap_socket (httpd.socket, certfile='/path/to/server.pem', server_side=True)
httpd.serve_forever()

Run $ python server.py

Default host here is localhost and port is 4443.

That’s it ! You have finally deployed an https server. Go to https://localhost:4443 and click Advanced > Proceed to localhost(unsafe) to accept certificates and see the serverd files.

###Sources: Generating valid self signed certificates for localhost development
Creating an HTTPS server in Python