Using Custom SSL Certs

Custom SSL certificates are digital certificates issued for a specific domain or subdomain to secure website traffic with HTTPS encryption. Unlike free SSL certificates provided by Certificate Authorities (CAs) like Let's Encrypt, custom SSL certificates are typically purchased from commercial CAs and can be customized to meet the website owner's specific security and branding requirements.

Prerequisites

• Command-line access to the server with PlexTrac installed and running

• Purchased SSL certificate from a vendor such as GoDaddy or DigiCert

• Two files are required to implement a custom SSL certificate with NGINX

  • a .crt file following this format:

  

  • a .key file following this format

  

Often, the contents of these files can be extracted from the PEM downloaded from the vendor.

Installing Custom Cert

Step 1: Copy the .key and .crt files to the server hosting PlexTrac.

Step 2: Edit the docker-compose.override.yml located in the installation directory of PlexTrac.

nano docker-compose.override.yml

Step 3: Uncomment “services”, “plextracnginx:”, “volumes” and the two lines ending in app.plextrac.key and app_cert_chain.crt.

Step 4: Replace “<< local key path here >>” and “<< local cert path here >>” with the file path to the files copied to the server in Step 1.

Take note of the two additional spaces for each new line.

Step 5: Save and exit.

Step 6: A command-line code must be executed to implement changes, but the line used depends on the scenario:

• If the PlexTrac instance is running on the latest version:

docker-compose up --force-recreate -d plextracnginx

• If the PlexTrac instance is on an older version:

plextrac update

Step 7: Clear browser cache or open an incognito page and browse to your PlexTrac URL to ensure successful changes.