Dec 11, 2020

Installing an SSL certificate for Adapt Authoring

This guide covers the steps to get SSL working on an Adapt Authoring instance — both for production (with NGINX) and for local development.

Steps

Step 1: Understand what an SSL certificate is

If you’re new to SSL, start here:
Cloudflare: What is an SSL Certificate?

Step 2: Check your Ubuntu version

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lsb_release -a

This tells you which Ubuntu version you’re running, which affects which SSL commands and package versions apply.

Step 3: Set up SSL on localhost (for development)

If you need HTTPS locally during development:
Localhost SSL fix

Step 4: Configure NGINX with SSL for Node.js

For production, use NGINX as a reverse proxy in front of your Node.js app with SSL termination:
Configuring NGINX and SSL with Node.js

NGINX handles the SSL connection, then passes the request to your app on a local port (e.g., 3000).