Create a Linux and Windows Server instance on the Google Cloud Platform

Register your account on GCP.

You will have $375 CAD for the credit on GCP.

Below are a couple of steps to create a Linux and Windows Server instance on the Google Cloud Platform (GCP).

Create a new GCP project.

Enable “Compute Engine API”.

Select your project, and search Compute Engine. Then, click “Create instance” to create new instance on GCP.

Waiting until the instance is booted up.

Check the External IP address of this instance. Click SSH, and select SSH from the web browser.

+ Windows instance.

Choose boot disk is Windows OS.

Set username and password for the instance.

Create Your Own Certificate Authority (CA) in Linux

A certificate authority (CA) issues digital certificates that certify the ownership of a public key by the named subject of the certificate.

Below are a couple of steps to install self-signed trusted Root CA on a Linux server.

Step #1: Install openssl

yum install openssl

Step #2: Creating your own CA

cd /etc/pki/CA/private/
openssl genrsa -aes128 -out ourCA.key 2048

Now create a Certificate Authority (CA) certificate using the ourCA.key.

openssl req -new -x509 -days 1825 -key /etc/pki/CA/private/ourCA.key -out /etc/pki/CA/certs/ourCA.crt

Next, create a local wildcard certificate (*.linuxlab.local) on your own CA.

openssl genrsa -out /etc/pki/tls/private/wildcard-cert.key 2048

Now, generate a CSR (Certificate Signing Request) for the wildcard cert.

openssl req -new -key /etc/pki/tls/private/wildcard-cert.key -out /etc/pki/tls/wildcard.csr

Using WinSCP to download a local Root CA self-signed public-key certificate to a Windows machine. Then, import it into the GPO of the Windows domain or any Windows/Linux/Mac web browser.