Securing A Website With Client SSL Certificates

In the comments of the last article Morgan came up with the idea of client SSL certificates to secure the admin panel. This is not authentication in a classical sense, it is saying which SSL certificates (which you self-signed) you allow to access a particular site. This is a better solution than limiting the access to various IP adresses when you are a work nomad and you have to access it from different parts in the world.

The steps to do this are:

1. Setup OpenSSL to become a Certificate Authority (CA)
2. Create a root CA key
3. Create a key for the (sub)domain in question
4. Setup your web server
5. Create a client certificate and install it in your browser

Here is the HOWTO: Securing A Website With Client SSL Certificates