How to Set Up HTTPS on Open edX

We are using Open edX powered by Bitnami on AWS Cloud Ironwood release.

We want to use HTTPS for Open edX:

• Learning Management System (LMS)
• Content Management System (CMS) or Studio
• Admin

First of all, get an SSL certificate from a provider such as Comodo.

You will get several files but we will only be using three:

• A certificate key file: example_com.key
• A certificate file: example_com.crt
• A CA certificate file: example_com.ca-bundle

Put all of these in ~/apps/edx/conf/certs

Use a subdomain for the CMS/Studio. If you haven’t already done so have a look at this article.

Now let’s edit the ~/apps/edx/conf/httpd-vhosts.conf file and add a virtual host at port 443 for the LMS and the CMS. Put a Redirect permanent on each virtual host listening on port 80 so any call to http will be redirected to https.

<VirtualHost *:80>
    ServerName lms.example.com
    Redirect permanent / https://lms.example.com/
    Include “/opt/bitnami/apps/edx/conf/httpd-lms.conf”
</VirtualHost>
<VirtualHost *:443>
    ServerName lms.example.com
    # ServerAlias *
SSLEngine on
    SSLCertificateFile “/opt/bitnami/apps/edx/conf/certs/example_com.crt”
    SSLCertificateKeyFile “/opt/bitnami/apps/edx/conf/certs/example_com.key”
    SSLCACertificateFile “/opt/bitnami/apps/edx/conf/certs/example_com.ca-bundle”
    Include “/opt/bitnami/apps/edx/conf/httpd-lms.conf”
</VirtualHost>
<VirtualHost *:80>
    ServerName studio.example.com
    Redirect permanent / https://studio.example.com/
    Include “/opt/bitnami/apps/edx/conf/httpd-cms.conf”
</VirtualHost>
<VirtualHost *:443>
    ServerName studio.example.com
    SSLEngine on
    SSLCertificateFile “/opt/bitnami/apps/edx/conf/certs/example_com.crt”
    SSLCertificateKeyFile “/opt/bitnami/apps/edx/conf/certs/example_com.key”
    SSLCACertificateFile “/opt/bitnami/apps/edx/conf/certs/example_com.ca-bundle”
    Include “/opt/bitnami/apps/edx/conf/httpd-cms.conf”
</VirtualHost>

Save ~/apps/edx/conf/httpd-vhosts.conf and now let’s edit ~/apps/edx/conf/httpd-lms.conf and comment out some lines to enable remote access to Django admin console:

# Disable remote access to Django admin console
# <Location “/admin”>
#     Require local
#     ErrorDocument 403 “For security reasons, this URL is only accessible using localhost (127.0.0.1) as the hostname.”
# </Location>

Save ~/apps/edx/conf/httpd-lms.conf and restart apache and edx processes:

$ sudo /opt/bitnami/ctlscript.sh restart apache
$ sudo /opt/bitnami/ctlscript.sh restart edx

And we’re done!

Now you can access your LMS, CMS and Admin on https://lms.example.com, https://studio.example.com and https://lms.example.com/admin.