How to Install an SSL Certificate on Adobe Connect?

You must secure your Adobe Connect server using an SSL certificate to help ensure secure online meetings, webinars, virtual classrooms, and the protection of sensitive user information.

An SSL certificate provides encryption of all communications from users to the Adobe Connect server, creating secure HTTPS and RTMPS connections and generating confidence in the trust and security of those services.

Adobe Connect SSL installation differs from other hosting panels, such as cPanel or CWP, by requiring manual setup of both file configurations and service settings in addition to manually configuring SSL certificates.

The purpose of this article is to provide information about installing an SSL certificate for Adobe Connect (versions 9 through the current).

How to Generate a CSR on using OpenSSL

To generate a CSR (certificate signing request) using OpenSSL, you will need to execute the following commands via your terminal:

openssl req -new -key yourdomain.key -out yourdomain.csr

Another method for generating a CSR is to use the -subj switch within the command to include your relevant information directly in the command line and not have to answer each of the normal prompts.

When executing this command, none of the standard prompts will be required:

openssl req -new -key yourdomain.key -out yourdomain.csr -subj "/C=US/ST=CA/L=San Francisco/O=Your Company, Inc./OU=IT/CN=yourdomain.com"

Taking these steps means that you have taken precautions to secure your Adobe Connect Server, and you will continue to care for the integrity of your online presence by acting in advance of the need to maintain that integrity.

Step-by-Step SSL Installation on Adobe Connect

• You should also open each of the .pem files in the same way you would open a text file and read them. You should see a long string of encrypted text beginning with “BEGIN” and ending with the word “END”.
• You also need to open the connect_yourdomain.com.crt and connect_domain_yourdomain.com.crt certificates and view them as text files.
• After each of the .pem files, you will need to copy all of the text from each of the .crt files into the corresponding .key.pem file immediately after (the next line) the end of the key.
• The next step will be to locate your file.crt file and copy the entire content of that file to both of the previously created text files after the last line of the server certificate.
• Finally, you should have already configured DNS entries for both connect.yourdomain.com and connect_domain_yourdomain.com.
• You must ensure that before you complete your SSL installation, there are no host entries set on your server for testing purposes for either of these two entries.

Configuration Part:

• Open and backup [path_to\comserv\win32\conf_defaultRoot\Adaptor.xml]. Replace the SSL block (a little more than halfway down) with the following block of text, replacing text in brackets with the information applicable to your configuration:

<SSL>
<Edge name="applicationserver">
<SSLServerCtx>
<SSLCertificateFile>[<connect install path>\\connect.mydomain.com.key.pem]</SSLCertificateFile>
<SSLCertificateKeyFile type="PEM">[<connect install path>\\connect.mydomain.com.key.pem]</SSLCertificateKeyFile>
<SSLPassPhrase>mypassphrase</SSLPassPhrase>
<SSLCipherSuite>ALL:!ADH:!LOW:!EXP:!MD5:@STRENGTH</SSLCipherSuite>
<SSLSessionTimeout>5</SSLSessionTimeout>
</SSLServerCtx>
</Edge>
<Edge name="meetingserver">
<SSLServerCtx>
<SSLCertificateFile>[\\connectdomain.mydomain.com.key.pem]</SSLCertificateFile>
<SSLCertificateKeyFile type="PEM">[\\connectdomain.mydomain.com.cert.cer]</SSLCertificateKeyFile>
<SSLPassPhrase>mypassphrase</SSLPassPhrase>
<SSLCipherSuite>ALL:!ADH:!LOW:!EXP:!MD5:@STRENGTH</SSLCipherSuite>
<SSLSessionTimeout>5</SSLSessionTimeout>
</SSLServerCtx>
</Edge>
</SSL>

• Find the <HostPortList> node in the same adaptor.xml file. There will probably be a line of uncommented text similar to the following:

<HostPort name="edge1">$Unknown macro: {DEFAULT_FCS_HOSTPORT}</HostPort>

• Replace that entire block of text with the following text:

<HostPort name="applicationserver"ctl_channel=":19351">your application server ip:-443</HostPort>
<HostPort name="meetingserver"ctl_channel=":19350">your meeting server ip:-443</HostPort>

• Next, open [<connect install path>\\custom.ini] and add the following code to the very end of that file:

ADMIN_PROTOCOL= https://\\\\
SSL_ONLY=yes
HTTPS_PORT=8443
RTMP_SEQUENCE=rtmps://external-host:443/?rtmp://localhost:8506/

• Save and close your customer.ini file.
• Now open and backup your VHost.xml file at [<connect install path>\\comserv\\win32\\conf_defaultRoot_defaultVHost_\\VHost.xml].
• Your RouteEntry node should be empty. Find that section and replace it with:

<RouteEntry protocol="rtmp">:;*:$
Unknown macro: 
{ORIGIN_PORT}
</RouteEntry>

• After updating the configuration to include a new VHost section, save and close the VHost.xml file.
• You will need to restart the Adobe Connect Enterprise and Meeting Server services after saving and closing file.
• You will access the Application Management Console through the URL of http://localhost:8510/console, click on the Server Settings tab, then edit both the Connect Pro Host field to your connect.mydomain.com domain and the Host Mappings External Name field to connectdomain.mydomain.com.
• Again, restart Adobe Connect Enterprise and Meeting Server services.
• After completing these steps, Adobe Connect will be functioning correctly and will force all non-secure connections to be sent securely over SSL.

Conclusion

Securing your online meetings, webinars, and virtual classrooms with encryption using an SSL Certificate (HTTPS and RTMPS) requires installing an SSL Certificate on Adobe Connect properly to make sure that sensitive communications between users are protected, as well as to provide a secure collaboration environment by properly configuring your SSL Certificate files, SSL Certificate settings in your server, and Adobe Connect services associated with your SSL Certificate.

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