For the last few days I have been getting emails from my server to the tune of:

################# SSL Certificate Warning ################

Certificate for hostname ‘myserver.example.com’, in file:

/etc/pki/tls/certs/myserver.example.com.cert

The certificate needs to be renewed; this can be done

using the ‘genkey’ program.

Browsers will not be able to correctly connect to this

web site using SSL until the certificate is renewed.

##########################################################

Generated by certwatch(1)

which leads me to believe my certificate has expired. I logged into my site and sure enough, it expired 30-days after I created it. I don’t think I have ever had a certificate with such a short life.

It looks like the genkey program for CentOS (and probably other distributions) has a default creation length of 30-days:

Usage: genkey [options] servername
–test   Test mode, skip random data creation, overwrite existing key
–genreq Just generate a CSR from an existing key
–makeca Generate a private CA key instead
–days   Days until expiry of self-signed certificate (default 30)

Also note the lack of a renew option, something you would expect to see since the message states it needs to be renewed. After searching forums and archives and getting a smattering of RTFM responses and dead ends, I dug into it.

1. Delete the old certificate pair in /etc/pki/tls/certs/ and /etc/pki/tls/private/. One ends in cert, one ends in key.

2. Run "genkey example.com --days 1825" (if you want a 5-year certificate).

3. Restart apache (service httpd restart)

That’s it. Truthfully, there is no renew anywhere, certificates aren’t really renewable, you just have to generate new ones each time.

I hope this helps those who received the cryptic message, you can finish your cereal and not be late to work today.

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