I have used MakeCert a while back to issue my dev box a certificate.  Then I could browse with https://localhost…. no problem.  But I was only testing with IE.  I tried it with FireFox and received a dialog box with the error: “Error establishing an encrypted connection to localhost. Error Code: -8183”.  If I made the request from a different machine to my development box SSL communications worked fine.  And I could initiate SSL traffic from my dev box to external SSL locations.  I search and found many issues but those issues never quoted the -8183 code but some codes very close.  But the underlying theme was a bad certificate.  So I started searching my emails and file system with X1 and found Cory’s post about using MakeCert.  In the past I have followed his lead but It always took a while.  Actually I remember finding MakeCert.exe to be a problem.  This time I decided to use the SelfSSL.exe tool that is located in the IIS 6.0 Resource Kit.  A quick look through X1 revealed I am storing the installation of the IIS 6.0 Resource Kit.  So I installed it.  First I removed my current cert from IIS.  Then I ran the following: “SelfSSL.exe /T /N: CN=localhost /V:700”.  That is it.  /T adds the self-signed certificate to the “Trusted Certificates” list.  /V sets how long he cert is good for.  Default is 7 days.  I don’t want to worry about doing this again until I rebuild the machine.  Check out IIS and you will see the cert and 443 port enabled. /N to force the common name to localhost.  At least then in development you will not get the Security Alert dialog, claiming the name on the security certificate is invalid or does not match the name of the site.

That was easy.

• Get IIS 6.0 Resource Kit.
• Run SelfSSL.exe /T /N:CN=localhost /V:700 .   Use the shortcut from the Start | All Programs Menus

BTW, this can be ran over and over again without having to manually remove the existing cert from IIS.