Saturday, 3 October, 2020

Trusting Lando SSL Certificates in Firefox

Lando is, arguably, the best tool available today for local WordPress development. It’s documentation, however, isn’t always perfect.

In the case of trusting SSL in Firefox it suggests trusting your system’s certificate store in Firefox. There are numerous reasons why you might not want to do this and a very simple procedure so that you won’t have to. The following walks you through trusting Lando sites via Firefox’s own certificate store so that you’ll get all the benefits of a trusted SSL for your development site without telling Firefox to trust everything your whole system does.

{{0xc0037c62d0 0xc0037c62d0 /images/2020/10/1-select-preferences-from-menu.png Enter preferences via the hamburger icon or keyboard shortcut Screenshot of Firefox hanburger menu icon Screenshot of Firefox hanburger menu icon 0xc000de0420} 0 true} — Enter preferences via the hamburger icon or keyboard shortcut

{{0xc0037c62d0 0xc0037c62d0 /images/2020/10/2-select-privact-and-security.png Select 'Privacy & Security' from the menu on the left Screenshot of Firefox ‘Privacy & Security’preference page Screenshot of Firefox ‘Privacy & Security’preference page 0xc000f60540} 1 true} — Select 'Privacy & Security' from the menu on the left

{{0xc0037c62d0 0xc0037c62d0 /images/2020/10/3-select-view-certificates.png Scroll down to the bottom of the 'Privacy & Security' page and select 'View Certificates' Screenshot of Firefox ‘Privacy & Security’ preference page showing ‘Certificates’ at the bottom. Screenshot of Firefox ‘Privacy & Security’ preference page showing ‘Certificates’ at the bottom. 0xc0015dafc0} 2 true} — Scroll down to the bottom of the 'Privacy & Security' page and select 'View Certificates'

{{0xc0037c62d0 0xc0037c62d0 /images/2020/10/4-select-authorities.png In the 'Certificate Manager' select 'Authorities' at the top and then press the 'Import' button Screenshot of Firefox’s certificates page on the Authorities tab Screenshot of Firefox’s certificates page on the Authorities tab 0xc0015daa80} 3 true} — In the 'Certificate Manager' select 'Authorities' at the top and then press the 'Import' button

{{0xc0037c62d0 0xc0037c62d0 /images/2020/10/5-select-lando.png Select the '.lando' folder in your home folder (you may need to view hidden files and you will have needed to already start a site in Lando to get the folder to display) Screenshot of home folder Screenshot of home folder 0xc000fae900} 4 true} — Select the '.lando' folder in your home folder (you may need to view hidden files and you will have needed to already start a site in Lando to get the folder to display)

{{0xc0037c62d0 0xc0037c62d0 /images/2020/10/6-select-certs.png In the '.lando' folder highlight 'certs' Screenshot of the contents of ‘.lando’ with ‘certs’ highlighted Screenshot of the contents of ‘.lando’ with ‘certs’ highlighted 0xc000ebac00} 5 true} — In the '.lando' folder highlight 'certs'

{{0xc0037c62d0 0xc0037c62d0 /images/2020/10/7-select-lndo-site-crt.png Select 'lndo.site.crt' and click 'Open' Screenshot of the contents of the ‘certs’ folder with ’lndo.site.crt’ highlighted. Screenshot of the contents of the ‘certs’ folder with ’lndo.site.crt’ highlighted. 0xc00138c960} 6 true} — Select 'lndo.site.crt' and click 'Open'

{{0xc0037c62d0 0xc0037c62d0 /images/2020/10/8-trust-for-websites.png When downloading the certificate, select 'Trust this CA to identify websites' and press 'OK' Screenshot of Firefox certificate import options Screenshot of Firefox certificate import options 0xc0014cef60} 7 true} — When downloading the certificate, select 'Trust this CA to identify websites' and press 'OK'

{{0xc0037c62d0 0xc0037c62d0 /images/2020/10/9-verify.png Verify the certificate has been imported by looking for 'Lando' under the 'Authorities' tab in the Firefox Certificate Manager. Press 'OK' Screenshot of Firefox’s Certificate Manager with Lando visible Screenshot of Firefox’s Certificate Manager with Lando visible 0xc000ece960} 8 true} — Verify the certificate has been imported by looking for 'Lando' under the 'Authorities' tab in the Firefox Certificate Manager. Press 'OK'

That’s all it takes. As long as you don’t delete the .lando file from your home directory you should now be able to easily work in Firefox with all certificates trusted.