HTTP2 Development in Node Using Self Signed Certs
There may be times when we want to test our application with SSL or want to configure it and use it locally. Even though newer APIs whitelist localhost for development I still would rather have HTTPS/SSL enabled to make sure that other parts of my apps work as intended, particularly since most of the new web APIs require HTTPS to run.
My preferred approach is to use the NODE_EXTRA_CA_CERTS environment variable to give Node the path to a file containing one or more certificates that you want to use. The extra certificates are used, in addition, to the list of Certificate Authorities that Node already trusts.
For example, if I want to trust a self-signed certificate that I created on my machine, I might execute the following command in my terminal or add it to my .bashrc:
export NODE_EXTRA_CA_CERTS=/c/code/server.crt.Generating certificates for local development #
If you want to generate a certificate for local development, something like this will work:
openssl req \
-newkey rsa:2048 -nodes -keyout domain.key \
-x509 -days 365 -out domain.crtNote you’ll want to set the Common Name to be **localhost if you intend to work locally, as opposed to 127.0.0.1. You also need to execute all your local requests to localhost as opposed to 127.0.0.1.**