Configure AWS load balancer with SSL certificates from Gandi

Oct 18, 2017 2 min read

This article will summarize the different steps to follow to configure your Amazon Web Service load balancer with using a SSL certificate. GANDI is the Certificate Authority used to generate the SSL certificate used in this article.

The article is composed as below:

Install AWS command line interface
Configure credentials
Ensure you have all the requirements
Upload your certificate using the AWS CLI
Configure your load balancer

Do not hesitate to comment in case of question.

Install AWS command line interface

Install PIP by following the procedure: https://pip.pypa.io/en/stable/installing
Install AWS CLI : http://docs.aws.amazon.com/cli/latest/userguide/installing.html

pip install awscli --upgrade --user

As specified in AWS documentation, modify your environment PATH to add the binaries folder where AWSCLI has been installed. For me, under macOS, it has been installed in the folder /Users/username/Library/Python/x.x/bin
Now you should be able to use the aws command. You can verify by executing the following:

aws --version

Configure credentials

Now the AWS CLI is installed, you need to configure the credentials to access to your AWS account. Personnally, I used the environment variables.

https://docs.aws.amazon.com/cli/latest/userguide/cli-environment.html

export AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID=AKIAIOSFODNN7EXAMPLE 
export AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY=wJalrXUtnFEMI/K7MDENG/bPxRfiCYEXAMPLEKEY 
export AWS_DEFAULT_REGION=us-west-2

Ensure you have all the required files

Once you ordered the SSL certificate to your certificate provider, you should have the following files:

A public key (certificate-1234.crt)
A private key (myserver.key)
A certificate chain (GandiStandardSSLCA2.pem)

Upload your certificate to AWS using AWS CLI

The full procedure is explained in AWS documentation: http://docs.aws.amazon.com/cli/latest/reference/iam/upload-server-certificate.html

The magic command to use with my files is:

aws iam upload-server-certificate \
--server-certificate-name myServerCertificate \
--certificate-body file://certificate-1234.crt \
--private-key file://myserver.key \
--certificate-chain file://GandiStandardSSLCA2.pem

Configure your load balancer listener

Connect to the AWS console
Choose EC2 service
Go to Load Balancing section
Then Load Balancer
In the list, select the concerned load balancer
Go to the tab Listeners and click on Change to select the SSL certificate you just uploaded