HTTPS

Introduction

This wiki page will help you to set up secure outside https access WITHOUT having to enable "Outside Access" in web admin (currently insecure I believe). Before starting, I would recommend registering a fully qualified domain name. This for all intents and purposes maps your external IP to an easy-to-remember address, which makes life a lot easier. Keeping in line with the example mentioned in this guide, it will be something similar to "linuxmce.yourdomain.com".

I used http://www.dyndns.com/ to set up my fully qualified domain name, and it has worked very well, as it is free!

Once set up is complete, you will be able to access your LinuxMCE admin page externally by typing in https://linuxmce.yourdomain.com. The "linuxmce.yourdomain.com" essentially replaces the "192.168.80.1" part that you would normally type in when on the internal network. This means that you can access your web orbiter (https://linuxmce.yourdomain.com/lmce-admin/weborbiter.php), your MythTV admin page (https://linuxmce.yourdomain.com/mythweb) or ZoneMinder for example (https://linuxmce.yourdomain.com/zm), if you have it installed.

Your fully qualified domain name can also be used for ssh-ing into your core i.e...

ssh root@linuxmce.yourdomain.com

Just make sure you open port 22 in the firewall settings in web admin if you want to do this.

Setting up HTTPS / SSL access on the outside

We start by creating a new password file (-c option) and adding a user (linuxmce) with a password (test) to the password file:

htpasswd -bc /etc/apache2/httpd.passwd linuxmce test

(Use the same line without the -c to add additional users)

mkdir /root/ssl
openssl genrsa -des3 -out /root/ssl/server.key 4096

(type a passwd twice)

openssl req -new -key /root/ssl/server.key -out /root/ssl/server.csr 

(type your previous passwd once and then fill in the fields)

Make sure that "Common Name (eg, YOUR name)" matches the registered fully qualified domain name of your box (or your IP address if you don't have one).

openssl x509 -req -days 3650 -in /root/ssl/server.csr -signkey /root/ssl/server.key -out /root/ssl/server.crt 

openssl rsa -in /root/ssl/server.key -out /root/ssl/server.key.insecure
mv /root/ssl/server.key /root/ssl/server.key.secure
mv /root/ssl/server.key.insecure /root/ssl/server.key 

FYI, you now have the following files in /root/ssl:

• server.crt: The self-signed server certificate.
• server.csr: Server certificate signing request.
• server.key: The private server key, does not require a password when starting Apache.
• server.key.secure: The private server key, it does require a password when starting Apache.

mkdir /etc/apache2/ssl
cp /root/ssl/server.key /etc/apache2/ssl
cp /root/ssl/server.crt /etc/apache2/ssl

Add the following in /etc/apache2/httpd.conf

SSLCertificateFile /etc/apache2/ssl/server.crt
SSLCertificateKeyFile /etc/apache2/ssl/server.key

<LocationMatch "/*">
#   Inside the subarea any Intranet access is allowed
#   but from the Internet only HTTPS + Strong-Cipher + Password
#   or the alternative HTTPS + Strong-Cipher + Client-Certificate

#   If HTTPS is used, make sure a strong cipher is used.
#   Additionally allow client certs as alternative to basic auth.
SSLVerifyClient      optional
SSLVerifyDepth       1
SSLOptions           +FakeBasicAuth +StrictRequire
SSLRequire           %{SSL_CIPHER_USEKEYSIZE} >= 128

#   Force clients from the Internet to use HTTPS
#RewriteEngine        on
#RewriteCond          %{REMOTE_ADDR} !^192\.168\.80\.[0-9]+$
#RewriteCond          %{HTTPS} !=on
#RewriteRule ^/(.*) https://%{SERVER_NAME}/$2 [R,L]

#   Allow Network Access and/or Basic Auth
Satisfy              any

#   Network Access Control
Order                deny,allow
Deny                 from all
Allow                from 192.168.80.0/24 127.0.0.1

#   HTTP Basic Authentication
AuthType             basic
AuthName             "LinuxMCE"
AuthUserFile         /etc/apache2/httpd.passwd
Require              valid-user

</LocationMatch>

# Since mythweb has it's own rewrites in a .htaccess file https redirection is enabled only on other urls
<LocationMatch "^/(?!mythweb).*">
#   Force clients from the Internet to use HTTPS
RewriteEngine        on
RewriteCond          %{REMOTE_ADDR} !^192\.168\.80\.[0-9]+$
RewriteCond          %{REMOTE_ADDR} !^127\.0\.0\.[0-9]+$
RewriteCond          %{HTTPS} !=on
RewriteRule ^/(.*) https://%{SERVER_NAME}/$2 [R,L]
</LocationMatch>

At the top of /etc/apache2/httpd.conf add the fully qualified domain name of your box that you added by "Common Name (eg, YOUR name)" when creating the certificate:

ServerName linuxmce.yourdomain.com

We have to change the beginning of vi /etc/apache2/sites-available/pluto to:

# NameVirtualHost *
<VirtualHost _default_:80>

And then copy this file:

cp /etc/apache2/sites-available/pluto /etc/apache2/sites-available/pluto443

Then change the beginning of /etc/apache2/sites-available/pluto443 to:

# NameVirtualHost *
<VirtualHost _default_:443>
        SSLEngine On

Make a symbolic link:

ln -s /etc/apache2/sites-available/pluto443 /etc/apache2/sites-enabled/pluto443

Move the original ssl configuration out of the way (to your home dir):

mv /etc/apache2/sites-available/default-ssl ~/
rm /etc/apache2/sites-enabled/default-ssl

Make sure that apache is listening on port 443 and the following line is in /etc/apache2/ports.conf:

Listen 443

Go to pluto web admin and to Advanced>Network>Firewall and add a new rule:

tcp ipv4 443 443 core_input

Then run:

apache2ctl restart

...and that should be it.

Notes

• I found that some devices had to be reset before they could connect to my core via https.
• On my current installation (810 beta, snapshot 23796) I found that "/etc/apache2/sites-available/pluto" and "/etc/apache2/ports.conf" were being overwritten every time the core was restarted. To combat the problem I did...

chattr +i /etc/apache2/sites-available/pluto
chattr +i /etc/apache2/ports.conf

...which stops even root from being able to alter the files. FYI this can be reversed using "-i" instead of "+i".