How to Create SSL Certificates for Development

Automate the generation of SSL certificates

How I look at certificates, image created by the author

Last week I started implementing an MQ Telemetry (MQTT) broker. MQTT is a lightweight publish-subscribe protocol used with Internet of Thing (IoT) solutions. This broker had to receive sensor data and resend it to other MQTT clients. Communication had to be secure.

Secure, in this case, meant using certificates.

OK, certificates, sigh, here we go again. I exhaled through my nose and gathered myself. I never liked working with certificates. I searched on the internet and found how to generate self-signed certificates. “I really should automate this,” I remember having this thought a couple of times before…

But somehow, I always end up creating the certificate by typing commands in a terminal. I then continue with the project and never look back.

I always had a love-hate relationship with certificates. I never understand how they work but once in a while need them during development.

So, I ended up creating this article. It is a future reference for me. It contains just enough details to understand certificates from a developer’s perspective.

Besides this, I finally automated the creation of a locally trusted development certificate. See this…