How to Configure Cloudflare Origin CA for Apache

Prerequisites

You should already have your Apache server configured and serving web pages for your domain. We have several guides to help you set up an Apache web server from scratch on Ubuntu 20.04 / 18.04 / 19.10.

• Installing Apache on Ubuntu 20.04
• Installing Apache on Ubuntu 18.04 / 19.10

1. Generate Cert and Private Key

Log in to Cloudflare and navigate to the SSL/TLS page.

Click Origin Server and then click Create Certificate.

In Origin Certificate Installation, the defaults should be Private Key Type: RSA with 15 years validity. Click Create.

In the next screen, the Key format should be PEM (default) and Web Server for Installation: Apache httpd.

Copy your Origin Certificate and Private Key to a text editor for later. We will need to paste these into Linux.

Finally, click OK to close.

2. Copy Cert and Key to Server

Create a new directory where our Cert and Key will reside.

sudo mkdir -p /etc/cloudflare/

Using nano text editor, create a new file example.com.pem (where example.com is your own domain).

sudo nano /etc/cloudflare/example.com.pem

Now paste in your Origin Certificate from Cloudflare.  Save file and exit. (Press CTRL + X, press Y and then press ENTER)

Create a new file example.com.key (where example.com is your own domain).

sudo nano /etc/cloudflare/example.com.key

Paste in your Private Key from Cloudflare.  Save file and exit. (Press CTRL + X, press Y and then press ENTER)

3. Configure Apache

Firstly, make sure you have the SSL module enabled for Apache by running:

sudo a2enmod ssl

Open the Apache configuration file for your domain. This is usually located in /etc/apache2/sites-available/

sudo nano /etc/apache2/sites-available/example.com.conf

There should already be a block for <VirtualHost *:80>. You need to add a new block underneath it for SSL port 443. You can also add a rewrite condition in your port 80 block to redirect all requests to https.

Below is an example.

<VirtualHost *:80>

    ServerAdmin webmaster@example.com
    ServerName example.com
    ServerAlias www.example.com
    DocumentRoot /var/www/example.com/public_html
    ErrorLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/error.log
    CustomLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/access.log combined

    RewriteEngine on
    RewriteCond %{SERVER_NAME} =example.com [OR]
    RewriteCond %{SERVER_NAME} =www.example.com
    RewriteRule ^ https://%{SERVER_NAME}%{REQUEST_URI} [END,NE,R=permanent]

</VirtualHost>

<VirtualHost *:443>

    ServerAdmin webmaster@example.com
    ServerName example.com
    ServerAlias www.example.com
    DocumentRoot /var/www/example.com/public_html
    ErrorLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/error.log
    CustomLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/access.log combined

    SSLEngine on
    SSLCertificateFile /etc/cloudflare/example.com.pem
    SSLCertificateKeyFile /etc/cloudflare/example.com.key

</VirtualHost>

Save file and exit. (Press CTRL + X, press Y and then press ENTER)

Test the configuration syntax for errors.

apachectl configtest

You can ignore any errors that say Could not reliably determine the server’s fully qualified domain name

If you see Syntax OK, restart Apache.

sudo systemctl restart apache2

Note, it can take 5 or 10 minutes for Cloudflare to deploy certs.

Make sure that SSL in Cloudflare is set to Full (Strict). This will ensure that data between Cloudflare and your server is always encrypted.

Getting the Real Client IP Address from Cloudflare in Apache

While you’re still here.. I recently wrote an article which may be of interest to you.

As may or may not know, when you enable Cloudflare on your site, the IP address that appears in your Apache access and error logs is that of the Cloudflare proxy and not the real client’s IP. As you can imagine, this is a security concern should you ever need to audit your logs or use IP restrictions with .htaccess.

Thankfully, Cloudflare sends the real client IP in the HTTP headers as CF-Connecting-IP, and you can configure Apache to use this IP in your logs instead of Cloudflare’s proxy IP.

• How to Get the Real Client IP Address from Cloudflare in Apache or PHP

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