Really easy way to use HTTPS on localhost

Testing if your site works well on your local machine is always burdensome.

I found a tool that makes it really simple, mkcert:

➜  localhost-https mkcert -install
Using the local CA at "/Users/.../mkcert" ✨
The local CA is now installed in the system trust store! ⚡️
The local CA is now installed in the Firefox trust store (requires browser restart)! 🦊
The local CA is now installed in Java''s trust store! ☕️

➜  localhost-https mkcert localhost
Using the local CA at "/Users/.../mkcert" ✨

Created a new certificate valid for the following names 📜
 - "localhost"

The certificate is at "./localhost.pem" and the key at "./localhost-key.pem" ✅

Then you can test with a simple HTML page:

➜  localhost-https cat index.html
───────┬──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
       │ File: index.html
───────┼──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
   1   │ <html>
   2   │ <body>
   3   │ HELLO WORLD
   4   │ </body>
   5   │ </html>
───────┴──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
➜  localhost-https ./node_modules/http-server/bin/http-server -S -C ./localhost.pem -K ./localhost-key.pem                                                                                                                         [18:12:41]
Starting up http-server, serving ./ through https
Available on:
  https://127.0.0.1:8080
  https://192.168.1.69:8080
Hit CTRL-C to stop the server

this is the result:

FiloSottile / mkcert

A simple zero-config tool to make locally trusted development certificates with any names you'd like.

mkcert

mkcert is a simple tool for making locally-trusted development certificates. It requires no configuration.

$ mkcert -install
Created a new local CA 💥
The local CA is now installed in the system trust store! ⚡️
The local CA is now installed in the Firefox trust store (requires browser restart)! 🦊

$ mkcert example.com "*.example.com" example.test localhost 127.0.0.1 ::1

Created a new certificate valid for the following names 📜
 - "example.com"
 - "*.example.com"
 - "example.test"
 - "localhost"
 - "127.0.0.1"
 - "::1"

The certificate is at "./example.com+5.pem" and the key at "./example.com+5-key.pem" ✅

Using certificates from real certificate authorities (CAs) for development can be dangerous or impossible (for hosts like example.test, localhost or 127.0.0.1), but self-signed certificates cause trust errors. Managing your own CA is the best solution, but usually involves arcane commands, specialized knowledge and manual steps.

mkcert automatically creates and installs a local CA in the system…

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