SSL cert generation using OpenSSL

Create CA

Generate private key for CA

openssl genrsa -des3 -out keys/ca.key 1024

 Generate CA cert

openssl req -config openssl.conf -new -x509 -days 1001 -key keys/ca.key -out certs/ca.cer

 Generate server cert request

Generate private key for server cert

openssl genrsa -out keys/domain.com.key 2048

Generate server certificate request 

openssl req -new -key keys/servercert.key -out requests/certreq.txt

Sign certificate request and create certificate

openssl ca -policy policy_anything -config openssl.conf -cert certs/ca.cer -in requests/certreq.txt -keyfile keys/ca.key -days 360 -out certs/servercert.cer

Combine private key and certificate in pkcs12 format for importing into Windows

openssl pkcs12 -export -out servercert.p12 -in servercert.cer -inkey servercert.key

Credits:
 http://www.dylanbeattie.net/docs/openssl_iis_ssl_howto.html
http://www.rackspace.com/knowledge_center/article/generate-a-csr-with-openssl
http://www.cs.virginia.edu/~gsw2c/GridToolsDir/Documentation/ImportUserCertificate.htm

Excel trick for creating Gantt chart

This is quite a useful trick to create a Gantt chart to chart latency of individual requests to some service over time.

http://www.brighthubpm.com/templates-forms/3418-using-excel-to-create-a-gantt-chart