Self Signed Certificate in IIS6

You can use the IIS 6 Resources Kit to generate and install a self-signed certificate with the SelfSSL.exe command line tool.

The IIS 6 Resouces Kit is available on the Microsoft.com website: http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=34407

Note that you should use a self-signed certificate when you need to troubleshoot third-party certificate problems or when you need to create a secure private channel between your server and a limited, known group of users, such as exists in a software test environment.

Follow this step in order to generate and install the self-signed certificate.

1. Create a virtual site (or use the one on which you want to install the certificate) and set up SSL (default port is 443)


2. Launch the SelfSSL tool (Start Menu All Programs IIS Resources SelfSSL SelfSSL Prompt)


3. Run the following from the prompt replacing the /N:CN with your DNS name and the /S parameter with the IIS site Id

SelfSSL /N:CN=dnsname.mydomain.org /V:365 /S:siteId /P:433

Note: If you create a SSL certificate for the main IIS site, you can omit the /S, else the site ID can be found from the IIS Manager console)

SelfSSL command help

Installs self-signed SSL certificate into IIS.
SELFSSL [/T] [/N:cn] [/K:key size] [/S:site id] [/P:port]

/T Adds the self-signed certificate to "Trusted Certificates" list.
The local browser will trust the self-signed certificate if this flag is specified.
/N:cn Specifies the common name of the certificate. The computer
name is used if not specified.
/K:key size Specifies the key length. Default is 1024.
/V:validity days Specifies the validity of the certificate. Default is 7 days.
/S:site id Specifies the id of the site. Default is 1 (Default Site).
/P:port Specifies the SSL port. Default is 443.
/Q Quiet mode. You will not be prompted when SSL settings are overwritten.

The default behaviour is equivalent with:
selfssl.exe /N:CN=MYSERVER /K:1024 /V:7 /S:1 /P:443