ntroduction and Goal

Step 1 :- Locate makecert.exe

Step 2:- Create the certificate

Step 3 :- Assign the certificate to the site

Step 4:- Test the site

Step 5 :- Find a nice restaurant

SSL diagnostic tool

Introduction and Goal

There are times where we would like to have SSL enabled in our development environment. SSL certificates needs to be bought from places like Thawte, Verisign, GeoTrust etc. Typical cost of SSL certificate is shown below.

Description	Certificate	Setup Fee	Recurring Fee	Total
Month 1	$27.95	$25.00	$9.00	$61.95
Every quarter	$0.00	$0.00	$9.00	$9.00
Once every 12 months	$27.95	$0.00	$0.00	$27.95

This means you also need to buy SSL certificate for your development server. This cost can double if you also setup of development and testing environment. So this article will save you 100$ atleast . Microsoft has provided ‘makecert.exe’ tool which helps us to create test certificates for our development environment.

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Step 1 :- Locate makecert.exe

The first thing is to locate makecert.exe. You can get the same from “C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio 8\Common7\Tools\Bin” or you can also get it from windows SDK.

Let’s run through what is “makecert.exe” and the explanation of different parameters. I admit this section I have shamelessly copied from http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd434713.aspx

MakeCert (Makecert.exe) is a command-line tool that creates an X.509 certificate that is signed by a system test root key or by another specified key. The certificate binds a certificate name to the public part of the key pair. The certificate is saved to a file, a system certificate store, or both.

Below is a detail list of how to use make cert

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MakeCert [/b DateStart] [/e DateEnd] [/m nMonths] [/n "Name"] [/pe] [/r] [/sc SubjectCertFile] [/sk SubjectKey] [/sr SubjectCertStoreLocation] [/ss SubjectCertStoreName] [/sv SubjectKeyFile] OutputFilePartial list of switches and arguments

/b DateStart
Specifies the start date when the certificate first becomes valid. The format of DateStart is

mm/dd/yyyy.
If the /b switch is not specified, the default start date is the date when the certificate is created.

/e DateEnd
Specifies the end date when the certificate’s validity period ends. The format of DateEnd is

mm/dd/yyyy.
If the /e switch is not specified, the default end date is 12/31/2039.

/m nMonths

Specifies the number of months starting from the start date during which the certificate will remain valid.

/n "Name"
Specifies a name for the certificate. This name must conform to the X.500 standard. The simplest method is to use the "CN=MyName" format.
If the /n switch is not specified, the default name of the certificate is "Joe's Software Emporium".

/pe
Configures MakeCert to make the private key that is associated with the certificate exportable.

/r
Configures MakeCert to create a self-signed root certificate./sc SubjectCertFile
Specifies the subject's certificate file name along with the existing subject public key that is used.

/sk SubjectKey
Specifies the name of the subject's key container that holds the private key. If a key container does not exist, a new key container is created. If neither /sk nor /sv switch is entered, a default key container is created and used by default.

/sr SubjectCertStoreLocation
Specifies the registry location of the certificate store. The SubjectCertStoreLocation argument must be either of the following:
currentUser
Specifies the registry location HKEY_CURRENT_USER.
localMachine
Specifies the registry location HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE.
If the /r switch is not specified along with the /s switch, currentUser is the default.

/ss SubjectCertStoreName
Specifies the name of the certificate store where the generated certificate is saved.

/sv SubjectKeyFile
Specifies the name of the subject's .pvk file that holds the private key. If neither /sk nor /sv switch is entered, a default key container is created and used by default.
OutputFile
The name of the file in which the generated certificate is saved.

Step 2:- Create the certificate

The second step is to create the certificate. You can type the below thing through your dos prompt on “C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio 8\Common7\Tools\Bin”. Please note “compaq-jzp37md0” is the server name so you need to replace with your PC name.

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makecert -r -pe -n "CN= compaq-jzp37md0 " -b 01/01/2000 -e 01/01/2050 -eku 1.3.6.1.5.5.7.3.1 -ss my -sr localMachine -sky exchange -sp "Microsoft RSA SChannel Cryptographic Provider" -sy 12

If you run the same through your command prompt you should get a succeeded message as shown below.

Step 3 :- Assign the certificate to the site

Now it’s time to assign this certificate to your IIS website. So go to IIS properties , click on directory security tab and you should see server certificate tab.

So click on the server certificate tab and you will then be walked through a IIS certificate wizard. Click ‘Assign a existing certificate’ from the wizard.

You can see a list of certificates. The “compaq-jzp37md0” certificate is the one which we just created using ‘makecert.exe’.

Step 4:- Test the site

Now try to test the site without ‘https’ and you will get an error as shown below….That means your certificate is working.

Step 5 :- Find a nice restaurant

Now that you have saved 100$ find a nice restaurant to burn it… 

SSL diagnostic tool

There is a other easy way also using the SSL diagnostic tool. Download this tool from http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=CABEA1D0-5A10-41BC-83D4-06C814265282&displaylang=en and create new cert on the IIS application with just a click as shown below.

Image courtesy :- http://pranas.net/Tutorials/ssl/SSLDiagnostics.htm

lthough many security software has been giving away subscription licenses for free, but most of the offer is valid for just a few months and will expire sometime in future. For example, offer by Avira, AVG, ESET, ZoneAlarm and others. To avoid the hassle for renewal, and if you don’t trust a company from China that makes available free for life Rising AntiVirus and Kingsoft AntiVirus, then probably the free security products from Comodo is your best bet.

Comodo Group is an American computer software company, which is currently one of the largest SSL certificate Certification Authority provider on the web that based in Jersey City, New Jersey. The best thing about Comodo is that it’s giving away genuine license for most of its advanced security protection application, and some of them is even top of the line products which attracts rave reviews and approvals. All the free software applications can be installed without any registration or activation serial code number or product key, and is valid forever for life with lifetime upgrade and signature database update.

The free Comodo products which can be downloaded, installed and used for free including:

1. Comodo Firewall Plus – An editor’s choice firewall that constantly monitors and defends PC from internet attacks。 Comodo Firewall Plus provides proactive malware defense with AV Scanner and Host Intrusion Prevention System (HIPS) to stop malware from being installed.
2. Comodo Verification Engine – Comodo VerificationEngine is an anti-phishing and identity assurance tool that authenticate sites to differentiate legitimate web sites from fraudulent ones for fraud protection. A green border will appear around browser if the site is authenticated.
3. Comodo Anti-Malware – Also known as Comodo BOClean, it stops and removes rootkits, spambots, hijackers, keyloggers, malware, trojan horse programs, spyware, pseudorootkits, adware, annoyware, email relays, spam proxies, spam relays, scam downloads email/spam robots (bots) and other unique, variant and repack malicious software in realtime, besides stopping identity thieves from getting personal information.
4. Comodo AntiSpam – Eliminates spam totally with Passcode Authentication Technology, an active filtering algorithm that authenticates the sender of each incoming email message, and sender-based authentication.
5. Comodo BackUp – Automatic file backup and recovery tool for Windows with support for complete file and folder-duplication to local disks, DVD-RW, CD-RW, network drives and FTP servers, intelligent incremental backups, e-mail reporting, extensive report logs, real time back ups with “synchronization” mode, advanced rule-based filtering, same file name backup-able on multi-session disc, flexible scheduling and space-saving archiving capabilities.
6. Comodo Memory Firewall – Another highly rated product, Comodo Memory Firewall is a buffer overflow detection and prevention tool which provides the ultimate defence against one of the most serious and common attack types on the Internet – the buffer overflow attack. Comodo Memory Firewall protects against data theft, computer crashes and system damage by preventing most types of buffer overflow attacks.
7. Comodo AntiVirus – Not as famous or reliable, but free of charge nonetheless, and features on-demand scanning, on-access scanning, email scanning, process monitoring, worm blocking and full scheduling capabilities to eliminate Viruses, Worms and Trojans from Windows XP and Windows 2000 computers.
8. Comodo iVault – iVault is a password manager that provides secure password management. It features instantaneous logins to any username and password secured web pages such as online banking and email account sites. It also doubles up as a 256 bit secure storage for private and confidential information such as credit card details and social security numbers and protects against the very latest key-logging Trojan Horse viruses.

   Note: Comodo iVault requires user registration to receive a free registration code.

9. Comodo SecureEmail – Comodo SecureEmail is a PKI based application that automatically encrypts and digitally signs all outgoing email messages to protect and prevent the content from been reading by person who are not authorized. SecureMail supports ’session’ certificates for direct sending and full integration with major mail clients including Outlook, Outlook Express, Thunderbird, Incredimail and many other POP, SMTP and IMAP based clients.
10. Trustix Enterprise Firewall – Trustix Enterprise Firewall is the only WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) for visualization firewall in the world for corporate network. A fully-featured packet-filtering router, Trustix Enterprise Firewall has advanced capabilities including the intuitive Xsentry graphical user interface, DMZ, 3DES encrypted VPN tunnels, proxy caching server, PKI X.509 certificates authentication and fault tolerant automatic failover features.
11. Trustix Secure Linux – This is not a software tool. Instead it’s a complete security hardened, server optimized Linux distribution by Comodo. Packages are been specifically chosen to maximize the security, performance and stability of corporate servers. It has no running services which may compromise security or denigrate system performance, features strong encryption and is capable of heavy duty multitasking.
12. Comodo AV Scanner – Online virus scanning service with heuristic analysis and constantly update virus definitions to scan and check if computer is infected with viruses and spyware.
13. Comodo SiteMon – Sitemon is a free website uptime, continuity and availability monitor and checker that automatically checks your website is up and running and viewable by your customers every ten minutes, 24/7. SiteMon also monitors user-selected keywords to ensure your web page has loaded correctly and content has not been modified. Any problem will be alerted via email.
14. Comodo Meet – Comodo Meet allows users to conduct interactive web conferences with remote team members online or reach global audiences with online webinars. Not exactly free though, but free license gives free usage of 60 minutes of conference time per month, every month, for up to 20 participants.
15. Comodo DiskShield – Currently in beta, but will be released as another free product. A product similar to Microsoft SteadyState, Comodo DiskShield is a disk virtualization software which could protect your computer configuration instantly by turning the disks into virtual disks. With CDS, all the changes made to a disk, such as copying, deleting files/folders, formatting the disk etc. are going to be temporary. All the changes will be eradicated when you restart the PC.
16. Comodo Disk Encryption – Currently in beta and available for free download. Similar to TrueCrypt and BitLocker, Comodo Disk Encryption is a disk encryption software which protects your sensitive information by encrypting it using several algorithms.
17. Comodo Vulnerability Analyzer – Another beta app similar to HackerGuardian PCI Scan Compliancy which will be released for free download with free lifetime license. Comodo Vulnerability Analyzer scans the software installed on computer and accesses or determines whether there is any vulnerabilities or they are up to date or approaching end of life (no longer supported).

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