A graphical tool for generating SSL certificates without any prior knowledge or command line tools.
Download from the releases tab and run the executable in a location where you have write permission, such as in a "Certificates" directory on your desktop.
For basic usage, you can simply click the Make Certificate button and find a new localhost.pfx file created next to the executable. Nobody likes renewing self-signed certificates, so by default this program uses an expiration date that is 500 years after you started it.
Self-signed certificates are not trusted by default, so you get security warnings whenever you try to connect to a web service that uses one. You can work around this by instructing your operating system to trust the certificate.
The Windows OS allows you to easily trust new certificates just by double-clicking on the certificate file and going through the certificate installation process. Specifically, I find that you need to choose the "Local Machine" store location and place your certificates in the "Trusted Root Certification Authorities" certificate store.
If you simply want a system to trust a certificate, you only need the signed public certificate (the .cer file if you are using the .cer and .key format). You can safely give the .cer file to anyone without compromising your private key. .pfx files created by this program contain both the public and private keys, so you should keep them secure.
The .cer and .key format is common on Linux. However if you want to use the certificate with IIS on Windows, you need to install the private key too, which in this case is easiest to do by installing the .pfx file to your Local Machine "Personal" certificate store.
Be careful when trusting and sharing certificates. If someone untrustworthy got ahold of the private key, they could use it to fool your computer into trusting any certificate they want!
Installing multiple certificates can be tiresome, especially if you need to do it on multiple computers. This is where it can be useful to create your own Certificate Authority.
If you use Certificate A to sign Certificates B, C, and D, then you only need your operating system to trust Certificate A and the other certificates will be trusted automatically. Because Certificate A is used to sign other certificates, it is called a Certificate Authority. Any certificate created by this program can be used as a Certificate Authority as long as it is located in the current working directory (the folder where the .exe resides).
In this screenshot, I have instructed my computer to trust "My Very Trustworthy Certificate Authority". Then I signed another certificate "MyESXiServer" with it, and now both are trusted.
If you want computers outside of your direct control to trust your certificates, you are in the wrong place. You need to use a globally-trusted certificate authority like LetsEncrypt - Free SSL/TLS Certificates which is a more complicated process and requires you to register the domain names you wish to secure.
This program also includes the ability to convert certificates and private keys between the .cer and .key and .pfx formats, via the button in the lower left corner of the main GUI.
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