[Arnold]

Does anyone have a guide or tips on setting up a free DNS server for my web server, and as well, as setting up an uncertified SSL https connection for the whole site?

[Amit]

Check out afraid.org these guys offer free DNS hosting, and they also let you choose a subdomain from a large registry of domains (like us.to). For HTTPS, you can get a free certificate signed by StartSSL authority (valid in almost all most recent OSs, including iOS, Android and Windows Phone 8), so you’ll get a proper SSL connection without browser warnings.

If you still want to create a self-signed cert, you’re going to need to have OpenSSL installed in your PC and hit that command prompt with:

$ openssl req -x509 -nodes -days 365 -newkey rsa:2048 -keyout mysitename.key -out mysitename.crt

It’ll ask you for a couple things to bake into the certificate, and then you’ll be all set. Depending on what server you’re using, installing any of these certificates is going to be a different process.