privatetls

PrivateTLS

A Golang library for quickly and easily starting a private HTTPS server with a self-signed TLS certificate, without requiring any preparatory work, such as pre-generating a cert with openssl. PrivateTLS generates a self-sigend certificate in memory, with no need for disk I/O.

This library is meant for use with private HTTPS services, where the use of a trusted third party Certificate Authority is not desirable, or not practical.

For all other situations, please do not use this library. Instead, use any available commercial CA providers, or use the free service from Let's Encrypt.

Quick Start

The easiest way to generate a certificate and start the server, is to use the privatetls.StartHTTPSListener() function:

package main

import (
	"fmt"
	"net/http"

	"github.com/netbucket/privatetls"
)

func main() {
	http.HandleFunc("/", helloHandler)

	// Generate a self-sgined cert and start an HTTPS listener on port 8443
	privatetls.StartHTTPSListener(":8443")
}

func helloHandler(w http.ResponseWriter, r *http.Request) {
	fmt.Fprintf(w, "Hello from PrivateTLS!")
}

The call to StartHTTPSListener will generate a self-signed RSA based TLS certificate with a random 2048 bit key. The certificate is valid for 1 year.

More control

If you want more control over the TLS configuration, use privatetls.NewCert() to generate a certificate and return it back to you:

package main

import (
	"crypto/tls"
	"fmt"
	"log"
	"net/http"

	"github.com/netbucket/privatetls"
)

func main() {
	http.HandleFunc("/", helloHandler)

	s := http.Server{}

	// Use port 8443 for the TLS/HTTPS server
	s.Addr = ":8443"

	// Generate a self-sifned certificate
	selfSignedCert, err := privatetls.NewCert()

	if err != nil {
		log.Fatal(err)
	}

	// Assign the generated self-signed cert to this server
	s.TLSConfig = &tls.Config{
		Certificates: []tls.Certificate{selfSignedCert},
	}

	// Start the TLS server. Use blank cert and key file values.
	s.ListenAndServeTLS("", "")

}

func helloHandler(w http.ResponseWriter, r *http.Request) {
	fmt.Fprintf(w, "Hello from PrivateTLS!")
}

That's it.