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I have my cert.pem and cert.key files in /etc/apache2/ssl folders.

What would be the most secure permissions and ownership of:

1) /etc/apache2/ssl folder

2) /etc/apache2/ssl/cert.pem file

3) /etc/apache2/ssl/cert.key file

(ensuring https:// access works of course :).

thanks

JP

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The directory permissions should be 700, the file permissions on all the files should be 600, and the directory and files should be owned by root.

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Thanks. This works. One thing - I guess the files only need to be read by root that starts the apache daemon. Why do we need to give "write" permissions to the file? – JP19 Dec 27 '10 at 18:11
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The files will need updating periodically, as your certificates expire and need to be renewed, and since there's no real security risk in making them writeable it makes life slightly simpler. They don't need to be readable for day-to-day use, so you can use 400 permissions (and 500 on the directory) if you don't mind having to fiddle with them at renewal time. – Mike Scott Dec 27 '10 at 18:13
cool. thanks for the perfect explanation. – JP19 Dec 27 '10 at 18:25
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