In this article you will learn how to setup SSL in
SharePoint 2013. In my next article I will show you how to setup an Extranet in
SharePoint 2013. Corporations usually setup SSL for Extranet sites. There are
three ways to setup SSL.
1.
One way is to use a
commercial SSL certificate. There are many sites that sell SSL certificates. For
learning purposes you can sign up for a trial version (30 days). This is what
this article will focus on today.
2.
Second way is to use a
self-signed certificate that you create
in IIS.
3.
Third way is to set up
your server to issue a certificate. This is what you need if you have custom DNS
entries. Of course, you can also use first option (using commercial certificate)
if you have DNS entries. If you use self-signed certificate and you have DNS
entries, you get an error. More on this in another
article!
So, let’s start. In this article, I will show you
how to use Verisign certificate. Verisign is one the most popular companies that
issue SSL certificates. We will sign up for a trial version.
1.
Before you sign up on
Verisign site, we first need to create a certificate request. This will be
needed when you sign up at Verisign.
2.
Open IIS 7.0 (Start >
Administrative Tools > Internet Information Services (IIS) Manager).
3.
Click on the server
name.
4.
In IIS section, double-click Server Certificates.
5.
On the right side, under
Actions, click Create Certificate Request… link.
6.
Request Certificate form will open.
Fill out the fields. Enter your site name or URL in the Common Name field. Enter your company
name or abbreviation in Organization
and Organizational Unit fields.
Enter City and State. Enter full state name,
abbreviation is not accepted. Select Country/region and click Next.
7.
Keep the default values
selected. Cryptographic service
provider should have Microsoft RSA
SChannel Cryptographic Provider selected. If it’s a test or development
environment, you can keep Bit length
set to 1024. If it’s a production environment and you are using a purchased
SSL key, then select Bit length
according to your needs. What kind of security is needed depends on what kind of
site you have created and what kind of content it has. For confidential content
or for government sites, you may want to select at least 2048 in Bit length. Remember, the greater the
bit length, the stronger the security. However, a greater bit length may
decrease performance.
8.
Browse to a folder that
will store the request and give a name to the file, for example, sslrequest.
Click Finish.
9.
Go to Verisign site and
sign up for a trial version. Here is the direct link for the signup
page:
Enter technical contact details and click Continue. On the next screen, you will
be asked to enter CSR. Open the request file that you had created, copy it and
paste it into the box on the site. Once you have signed up, you will get an
email with the key.
10.
There will be three
links in the email. Click the first link to download and install the Test Root CA Certificate. On
the download page, there are different browsers listed. Select the browser that
you will use for your site testing. Remember if you know you audience will use
different browsers then you need to perform this step for every browser that
your audience will be using. Steps for Internet Explorer are listed next.
11.
Click the link Download Secure Site Trial Root Certificate
link. From the box, copy the certificate and save it in a text file with a
.cer extension.
12.
Open Internet
Explorer.
13.
Go to Tools >
Internet Options > Content > Certificates.
14.
Click Import…. A wizard will open. Click
Next.
15.
Browse to the location
of the recently stored .cer file (step 11 above).
16.
Select the certificate
and click Open.
17.
Click Next.
18.
Select Automatically select the certificate store
based on the type of the certificate. Click Ok.
19.
Click Next then Finish.
20.
When prompted and asked
if you wish to add the following certificate to the root store, click
Yes.
21.
Second step listed in
the email confuses many people. Basically this step is not required for latest
IIS server. Users using IIS 5.0 or Higher servers do not need to download the
intermediate CA as it is included with the SSL certificate upon issuance if they
selected in the purchase as server vendor: Microsoft IIS 5.0 or higher. If you
are not sure about the selection you made when requesting SSL certificate, go
ahead and install it. It will not harm anything. To install it, perform same
steps as listed above (Steps 11 – 19). Be sure to click second link in your
email instead of first when performing step 11.
22.
Just like the second
step, third step in the email is equally confusing. Don’t follow those steps,
follow the ones listed below to install the certificate without hassles.
23.
Copy the certificate
from your email. It will be at the bottom of the email. Be careful when copying.
Copy whole text including -----BEGIN CERTIFICATE----- and -----END
CERTIFICATE----- and paste it into Notepad. There should be no white spaces or
extra line breaks. Save the file with .p7b extension. You can name the file
as sslcert.p7b or whatever you prefer.
24.
Click Start > Run and
type mmc and click OK. MMC console will open.
25.
From File, select Add/Remove
Snap-in.
26.
Select Certificates from available snap-ins
and click Add >.
27.
Select first option My user account and click Finish.
28.
Click OK.
29.
Expand Certificates – Current User node.
30.
Expand the Trusted Root Certification Authorities
folder on the left and select the Certificates subfolder.
31.
Locate the following
certificate:
a.
Issued To:
VeriSign
Class 3 Public Primary Certification Authority - G5
32.
Right-click
the certificate and select Properties.
33.
In
the Certificate purposes section, select Disable all purposes for this
certificate. This is a pre-installed certificate and must be disabled before
using new certificate from SSL.
34.
Click Apply then OK.
Install
Certificate
35.
Finally, install the
certificate. There are two ways to do it. One is through the IIS and the other
is the MMC certificates console. I prefer the second way because you have to
come to the MMC certificates console anyway to fix a problem if you opt to
install the certificate through IIS. If you install the certificate through IIS,
at the time of binding the certificate to your site, certificate will not show
up in IIS and then you will have to come to the MMC certificates console to
perform an additional step. So it’s better to go with the MMC route from the
beginning. There is another problem with
the IIS method. You get the following error when you install the certificate
through IIS.
Error
Text: Cannot find the certificate request that is associated with this
certificate file. A certificate request must be completed on the computer where
the request was created.
36.
Open MMC console (Start
> Run > Type MMC > Click OK).
37.
Certificates console
will still be available because you added it in step 24 but if for some
reason you had to restart your machine
or log out of it then you will have to add the console again. Follow steps 24 –
28 to add Certificates console.
Expand Certificates – Current User
node on the left.
38.
Expand Trusted Root Certification Authorities
and click Certificates folder.
39.
Right-click Certificates folder and select All Tasks then select Import.
40.
Browse to the
certificate (.p7b) file. Click Next.
41.
Select Place all certificates in the following
store and leave default store selected. Click Next.
42.
Click Finish.
43.
You will get The import was successful message.
Click Ok. You may also get following
security warning.
Error
Description: You are about to install a certificate from a certification
authority (CA) claiming to represent: Verisign Trial Secure Server Root CA –
G2.
If you get this security warning, click Yes to install the
certificate.
44.
With MMC Certificates
console still open, expand Personal
folder on the left and right-click Certificates subfolder. Select All Tasks then select Import.
45.
Browse to certificate
file (.p7b) and Click Next.
46.
Keep second option Place all certificates in the following
store selected and keep Personal
certificate selected as the default option. Click Next.
47.
Click Finish. You will get The import was successful message.
Click Ok.
Bind Certificate to
your site
48.
Finally, bind
certificate to your site. Open IIS.
49.
Click server name.
Expand Sites node.
50.
Click site name that you
will bind to the SSL certificate.
51.
On the right, under Actions, click Bindings.
52.
Click Add.
53.
In Type, select https.
54.
Keep 443 in the Port. This is default port used for
SSL.
55.
In SSL Certificate, select the certificate
you just installed. Please note that if you don’t see new certificate in this
drop down, then you probably missed steps 44 – 47 above. Click OK. That’s it.
Alternate Access
Mappings
56.
Assuming you have a web application setup to work
with SSL, configure Alternate Access Mappings to use site with SSL. Open Central Admin Site and click Application Management.
57.
Under Web Applications, click Configure alternate access mappings.
58.
You will
notice you already have default site listed in the Default zone. To add new URL in the Intranet zone, click Add Internet URLs.
59.
From the Alternate Access Mapping Collection
drop down, select correct application that you want to use for the AAM setting
and then add URL in the text box labeled URL protocol, host and port, for
example, https://www.walisystems.com. From the Zone dropdown, select Intranet.
60.
Click Save.
Now open site with https to test that everything
works fine.
In the address bar, click the lock sign to check
validity of the certificate. If you want to see the certificate, click View Certificates link at the bottom of
the notification.
Note: 
