Overview

A self-signed SSL certificate is a certificate that is signed by the person who created it rather than a trusted certificate authority. Self-signed certificates can have the same level of encryption as the trusted CA-signed SSL certificate.

Typically, the self-signed certificates are used for testing purposes or internal usage. You should not use a self-signed certificate in production systems that are exposed to the Internet.

Windows IIS

Create a self-signed certificate in an administrator PowerShell
Export the certificate to a file
Install the certificate in the Trusted Root Certification Authorities store for Windows or import just for Chrome
Specify the certificate in the https web site binding
Configure Firefox to automatically import certificate authorities

Create Certificate

Create the certificate in an administrator PowerShell:

Here the minimum required parameters have been used:

New-SelfSignedCertificate -DnsName "win-cutd9v4hrbs.lianja.local", "win-cutd9v4hrbs" \
-CertStoreLocation "cert:\LocalMachine\My"

See here for full details on the PowerShell New-SelfSignedCertificate cmdlet

Export Certificate

In Internet Information Services (IIS) Manager, open the Server Certificates for the server and you should see your newly created self-signed certificate.

Click View, then Copy to File... in the Details tab:

Click Next on the welcome screen:

Select whether to export the private key with the certificate:

Select the export file format:

Select the location for the file and specify the file name:

Click Next to confirm the file name and location:

Review the details and click Finish to export:

You should now see the 'export was successful' message:

Install Certificate

To access the https web site from Chrome only, skip this step and follow the instructions in Chrome below.

To access the https web site from Edge and/or Firefox (and Chrome), install the certificate:

In Windows Explorer, locate the file created by the Export Wizard, right-click on the file and select Install Certificate:

On the welcome screen, select the store location and click Next:

In the certificate store screen, click Browse... and select Trusted Root Certification Authorities, then click OK and Next:

Confirm the certificate store location and click Next:

Review the settings and click Finish:

You should now see the 'import was successful' message:

Add Site Binding

In Internet Information Services (IIS) Manager select the web site and click Bindings, then click Add... to create a new https binding or Edit... to modify an existing one:

Add/edit the https type binding and select the self-signed SSL certificate you created:

Review the settings then click OK:

Restart the website.

Edge

After completing the steps above, you will now be able to access your https site from Edge:

Close any previously open Edge sessions and restart Edge to test.

Note: here the Default Document has been redirected to the Lianja login page. See IIS Redirect Default Document for details.

Firefox

By default, Firefox does not automatically import CAs (certificate authorities) that have been installed in the Windows certificate store by users/administrators.

So, after exporting and installing your self-signed certificate, it will not yet be recognized as valid in Firefox: