Category: security

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Create a Self-Signed SSL Certificate on Windows

You can create a self-signed certificate using PowerShell.

  1. Open PowerShell as Administrator.
  2. Run this command to create a new self-signed cert and export the key and certificate as .pem files:
powershellCopyEdit# Define file paths
$certPath = "C:\Users\<YourUser>\bolt-certs"
New-Item -ItemType Directory -Path $certPath -Force

# Create self-signed cert
$cert = New-SelfSignedCertificate -DnsName "localhost" -CertStoreLocation "cert:\LocalMachine\My"

# Export certificate (public part)
Export-Certificate -Cert $cert -FilePath "$certPath\cert.pem"

# Export private key as PFX
$pfxPath = "$certPath\cert.pfx"
$password = ConvertTo-SecureString -String "YourStrongPassword" -Force -AsPlainText
Export-PfxCertificate -Cert $cert -FilePath $pfxPath -Password $password
  1. Convert the .pfx file to .key and .pem files (Docker usually wants .key and .crt or .pem separately).
    You can do this using OpenSSL (if you have it installed, e.g., via Git Bash or [WSL]):
bashCopyEdit# Navigate to cert folder (adjust path)
cd /c/Users/<YourUser>/bolt-certs

# Extract key
openssl pkcs12 -in cert.pfx -nocerts -out key.pem -nodes -password pass:YourStrongPassword

# Extract cert
openssl pkcs12 -in cert.pfx -clcerts -nokeys -out cert.pem -password pass:YourStrongPassword