How to install SSL on Webmin

Updated on 28 Oct 2024

The instructions below walk you through installing SSL on Webmin. If you have more than one server or device, you will need to install the certificate on each one you want to protect. If you have not generated your certificate or finished validation yet, see our CSR generation instructions and skip the steps below.

What you will need

  1. Your server certificate

This is the certificate the certificate authority issued for your domain. It may have been emailed to you. If not, you can download it from your account dashboard by clicking on your order.

  1. Your intermediate certificates

These files let devices connecting to your server identify the issuing certificate authority. There may be more than one of them. If your certificate arrived in a ZIP folder, the intermediates — sometimes called the CA bundle — should be in there too. If not, download the right CA bundle for your certificate.

  1. Your private key

This file should be on your server, or in your hands if you generated your CSR with a free generator tool. On some platforms, such as Microsoft IIS, the private key is not immediately visible to you but the server keeps track of it.

Installation instructions

  1. Copy the certificates to the server. Copy your certificate files — the SSL certificate and the intermediates — along with your private key, and put them on your server.
  2. Find your miniserv.pem file. It is usually in the same directory as your miniserv.conf file. You are going to replace miniserv.pem with a new one you are about to create.
  3. Create a new miniserv.pem. There are two ways to do this. Run the following command:
    cat private.key yourdomain.crt > new-miniserv.pem
    Or open both your SSL certificate and your private key, paste them both into a new .txt file — key first, then certificate — and save it as new-miniserv.pem.
  4. Set up your miniserv.conf file. Finally you need to add your intermediate. Open your .conf file and give the location of the intermediate you copied to the server earlier:
    extracas=/etc/webmin/intermediate_certificate.crt

That is it — your SSL certificate is installed. To check your work, open the site in your browser at https://yourdomain.tld and look at the certificate and site information to confirm HTTPS is working properly. Remember that you may need to restart your server before the changes take effect.

To check your installation properly, use our SSL Checker. If something does not add up, get in touch and we will look at it with you.