If you have a local installation of Creatio that you use for development and would like to use HTTPS to access this local install, this article will outline the steps needed to set this up.
If You’re Accessing the Local Install on the Same Server via Localhost
If you’re working on the same server where the local Creatio install is located, and accessing it via localhost, you can use the IIS Express Development Certificate on the machine. The first step is to open the bindings for the Creatio website in IIS and add https, then select the IIS Express Development Certificate.
Once you’ve added that, you’re still not yet done. Chrome won’t recognize the certificate as valid since it’s not from a trusted certification authority. To get it to be recognized as valid, we need to add the certificate to the Trusted Root Certification Authorities store for the local computer and for the user. To do this, click the “Not secure” button in the Chrome address bar, then click “Certificate”:
A dialog will open showing the details of the certificate. Switch to the Details tab and click the Copy to File button and save the certificate somewhere on your computer (like your desktop, this is temporary and you can delete after you’re done with all the steps). Just leave all defaults in the wizard that saves the certificate:
Once the certificate is saved, simply double-click on it and then click the “Install Certificate” button:
A wizard will open to install the certificate. Select “Local Machine” and then next. Select “Place all certificates in the following store” and then browse to select “Trusted Root Certification Authorities” as the location. Then click next through the wizard accepting all other defaults:
Once that is done, repeat the steps by double-clicking the certificate file again, but this time select “Current User” instead of “Local Machine” and install it in the Trusted Root Certification Authorities for the current user.
If Chrome is open, you’ll need to close it and reopen. Now, when you go to https://localhost you’ll get the lock icon.
If You’re Accessing Creatio On Other Computers (Not via Localhost)
If you’re not accessing Creatio via localhost on the same server it’s installed on, you’ll want to get a real certificate. This method works for even local production installs as well, not just for development purposes. To do this, I would recommend using LetsEncrypt.org. LetsEncrypt is a free certification authority. There is a tool that makes installing this in IIS a breeze. The tool is on a website named CertifyTheWeb.com, which uses LetsEncrypt, it will retrieve a valid certificate from LetsEncrypt.org for you, install it in IIS, and will even keep it renewed automatically for you (LetsEncrypt.org certificates expire after 3 months unless continually renewed – this tool will do that for you automatically).
As I mentioned, this route is valid not just for development environments, but for production Creatio installs (or any website) as well.
If you’d like, I have also recorded the steps walking though what I’ve outlined in this article. You can view that recording here.
PLEASE NOTE
For current versions of Creatio, you will also need to make some changes to the web.config files. See this article in the academy
