Let’s Encrypt Https for Dev
It’s amazing being able to get free TLS certificates instantly from Let’s Encrypt.
But they don’t provide certificates for localhost
You can generate, and trust, your own certificates and I’ve written up how to do that but honestly it’s not a trivial process.
Here is how to use Let’s Encrypt for local dev.
All Let’s Encrypt needs is a valid domain name and proof that you own it.
So, assuming that you own a domain:
- Create a name for your local server
something like dev.tangiblebytes.co.uk
- Find the IP address
I’m using docker compose so I’ll set a fixed IP in dockers network and use this
- So I have a public DNS record pointing to a private IP (which only works on my network)
- Create the DNS record
Using your providers control panel
- Get certbot
- Generate the Certificate
This defaults to an automated process that requires a public webserver to work, We can instead use a manual process.
sudo certbot certonly --manual -d dev.tangiblebytes.co.uk --preferred-challenges dns- You will be asked to add a DNS TXT record - do this via your DNS control panel
- Copy the certificate to your webserver
ssl_certificate fullchain.pem
- ssl_certificate_key privkey.pem
- Keep the certificates secure
Do not share them in a git repo
- I know this is only dev but this is a real certificate - get in the habit of keeping it secure.
Summary
This is a fairly quick and easy way to get a valid TLS certificate - it gains you experience of using certbot and Let’s Encrypt.
It does require a domain name.
The certificate will expire in a few months - and needs to be renewed.
It makes dev a lot more like production as far as the browser is concerned and that is a very good thing for testing.