Let me walk you through it: $ openssl genrsa -out $server.key 2048 $ openssl req -new -sha256 -key $server.key -out $server.csr Get the CSR to a CA an

Let me walk you through it: $ openssl genrsa -out $server.key 2048 $ openssl req -new -sha256 -key $server.key -out $server.csr Get the CSR to a CA and get the cert in your email inbox. Compose the cert into a chain (the most painful part of the process). Put the cert and the key in /etc/ssl/certs/example.com.crt and respectively /etc/ssl/private/example.com.key; In your nginx config add the following: server { listen 443 ssl spdy; server_name www.example.com ssl on; ssl_session_timeout 5m; ssl_session_cache shared:SSL:5m; ssl_protocols TLSv1 TLSv1.1 TLSv1.2; ssl_ciphers 'ECDHE-RSA-AES128-GCM-SHA256:ECDHE-ECDSA-AES128-GCM-SHA256:ECDHE-RSA-AES256-GCM-SHA384:ECDHE-ECDSA-AES256-GCM-SHA384:DHE-RSA-AES128-GCM-SHA256:DHE-DSS-AES128-GCM-SHA256:kEDH+AESGCM:ECDHE-RSA-AES128-SHA256:ECDHE-ECDSA-AES128-SHA256:ECDHE-RSA-AES128-SHA:ECDHE-ECDSA-AES128-SHA:ECDHE-RSA-AES256-SHA384:ECDHE-ECDSA-AES256-SHA384:ECDHE-RSA-AES256-SHA:ECDHE-ECDSA-AES256-SHA:DHE-RSA-AES128-SHA256:DHE-RSA-AES128-SHA:DHE-DSS-AES128-SHA256:DHE-RSA-AES256-SHA256:DHE-DSS-AES256-SHA:DHE-RSA-AES256-SHA:AES128-GCM-SHA256:AES256-GCM-SHA384:AES128-SHA256:AES256-SHA256:AES128-SHA:AES256-SHA:AES:CAMELLIA:DES-CBC3-SHA:!aNULL:!eNULL:!EXPORT:!DES:!RC4:!MD5:!PSK:!aECDH:!EDH-DSS-DES-CBC3-SHA:!EDH-RSA-DES-CBC3-SHA:!KRB5-DES-CBC3-SHA'; ssl_prefer_server_ciphers on; # HSTS (ngx_http_headers_module is required) (15768000 seconds = 6 months) add_header Strict-Transport-Security max-age=15768000; resolver 8.8.8.8; ssl_certificate /etc/ssl/certs/example.com.crt; ssl_certificate_key /etc/ssl/private/example.com.key; #... } Restart nginx. If you want to only do HTTPS, and have HTTP redirect to HTTPS: server { listen 80 default_server; server_name _; rewrite ^ https://www.example.com$request_uri permanent; } It took 3 minutes to write this comment. Getting a new cert up and running will take you $5 and 15 minutes if you follow these instructions. Free if you use startssl.com. Cheapest wildcard I found was https://www.ssls.com/ https://www.ssls.com/ when they ran a sale: $42. Current cheapest Google turned up was https://cheapsslsecurity.com/sslproducts/wildcardssl.html https://cheapsslsecurity.com/sslproducts/wildcardssl.html for $60. Personally, I prefer wildcard certs whenever possible, free certs from startssl.com.