How to update SSL certificate on EC2 instances

Question

Here is my dilemma. Currently we run quite a few server on AWS EC2 service. Before my time, they used to configure Server images with the SSL certificate on them. Now, the certificate is about to expire and we need to replace the old one with the new one. I have read documentation on AWS in regards to uploading new certificate to IAM but it is very confusing. Is there any way, for example, using Power Shell commands to upload the new certificate to the existing servers?

Thanks in advance.

Answer 1

If you have certificates that are expired on existing instances and NOT on an Elastic Load Balancer, then you need to update each server as needed, on that server.

It is not an IAM type server certificate.

So you need to touch each server and upgrade. If you have AMIs for each server, you may need to create new AMIs after upgrading the certificate.

See Install certificate with PowerShell on remote server for some suggestion on PowerShell methods of installing a certificate file remotely.

Depending on your budget, you could consider using an ELB even for one instance, and installing the SSL cert there. It makes it easier in the long run to manage certs at the ELB level, rather than at the server/AMI level