Renew Self-Signed SSL Certificate on Linux

If you are receiving a similar email to the one below, it can be a bit misleading if you are using self-signed certificates. The warning below really only applies to purchased certificates, not ones that have been home grown.

If you are using self signed certificates, there is no option to renew it. You just can’t (you’re the certificate authority anyhow), so you must generate a completely new certificate.

################# SSL Certificate Warning ################

  Certificate for hostname 'your.host.name', in file:
     /etc/ssl/certs/https_www.pem

  The certificate needs to be renewed; this can be done
  using the 'genkey' program.

  Browsers will not be able to correctly connect to this
  web site using SSL until the certificate is renewed.

 ##########################################################
                                  Generated by certwatch(1)