If your domain is configured with Cloudflare then you don’t need to worry about creating SSL certificates for your apps on VPS and setting up auto-renewal for them. You can use Cloudflare’s free origin certificate. Here is how it works.
Once you turn on Cloudflare’s proxy on your domain your connection from user to Cloudflare is already secured by Cloudflare. Now all you need is to create and setup a certificate on your server to secure the communication between Cloudflare and your server, and for this you can use the Cloudflare’s free origin Certificate. This free Certificate is valid for 15 years so you don’t need to worry about renewing it every 90 days.
Create the free origin certificate
- Login to your Cloudflare account and browse to your domain
- On the left hand menu look for SSL/TLS and click on it open the dropdown menu
- Click on Origin Server
- Look for the button that says create certificate and click on it
- Keep the default options selected and click create
- Copy both the certificate and key. Choose .pem format for the certificate and make sure to save the key – you won’t be able to see the key after you browse away from this page.