Installing SSL on Apache - Syntax Error in openssl.cnf - apache

Question

I'm trying to learn how to get ssl up and running on an apache 2.4 webserver (Windows Server 2012). I had the web server and PHP up and running perfectly fine without SSL.
I Generated my cert and key and placed them in C:\Apache24\conf
I Modified httpd.conf in the following way:
LoadModule ssl_module modules/mod_ssl.so
Include C:/Apache24/conf/openssl.cnf
I modified c:/Apache24/conf/extra/httpd-ssl.conf in the following way:
SSLCertificateFile "c:/Apache24/conf/server.crt"
SSLCertificateKeyFile "c:/Apache24/conf/server.key"
DocumentRoot "c:/Apache24/htdocs"
Added the following System Environment Variable
Variable Name: OPENSSL_CONF
Variable Value: C:\Apache24\conf\openssl.cnf
I've hit a point where apache will not start due to the following error.
running httpd -t in powershell gives the result:
: Syntax error on line 8 of C:/Apache24/conf/openssl.cnf:
Invalid command 'HOME', perhaps misspelled or defined by a module not included in the server configuration
The following are lines 6 through 9 of openssl.cnf ( I have not modified this file. )
# This definition stops the following lines choking if HOME isn't
# defined.
HOME = .
RANDFILE = $ENV::HOME/.rnd
Any help is appreciated.
Thanks !

Answer 1

You are basically trying to include a third party config file inside httpd configuration, which will never yield a good result because Apache httpd will never recognize what's in there. Remove that include.
If you want to add system variables you can use PassEnv directive from mod_env module.
To get SSL up and running all you need is a SSL virtualhost like this:
In your server config something like:
LoadModule ssl_module modules/mod_ssl.so
<IfModule mod_ssl.c>
Listen 443
LoadModule socache_shmcb_module modules/mod_socache_shmcb.so
SSLProtocol all -SSLv3
SSLCipherSuite ECDHE-ECDSA-AES256-GCM-SHA384:ECDHE-RSA-AES256-GCM-SHA384:ECDHE-ECDSA-CHACHA20-POLY1305:ECDHE-RSA-CHACHA20-POLY1305:ECDHE-ECDSA-AES128-GCM-SHA256:ECDHE-RSA-AES128-GCM-SHA256:ECDHE-ECDSA-AES256-SHA384:ECDHE-RSA-AES256-SHA384:ECDHE-ECDSA-AES128-SHA256:ECDHE-RSA-AES128-SHA256
SSLHonorCipherOrder on
SSLCompression off
SSLSessionTickets off
SSLRandomSeed startup file:/dev/urandom 2048 # perhaps this need to be adapted for windows
SSLRandomSeed connect file:/dev/urandom 2048 # same with this
SSLSessionCache shmcb:/path/to/logs/ssl_gcache_data(512000)
</IfModule>
And the Virtualhost:
<Virtualhost *:443>
ServerName myssllvh.example.com
DocumentRoot /filesystem/path/to/docroot
CustomLog /path/to/logs/mysslvh.log combined
ErrorLog /path/to/logs/mysslvh-error.log
SSLEngine on
SSLCertificateFile /path/to/certs/mysslvh.crt
SSLCertificateKeyFile /path/to/certs/mysslvh.key
# Other stuff here
</VirtualHost>