SSL configuration in CouchDB was designed to be as easy as possible. All you need is two files; a certificate and a private key. If you bought an official SSL certificate from a certificate authority, both should be in your possession already.

If you just want to try this out and don't want to pay anything upfront, you can create a self-signed certificate. Everything will work the same, but clients will get a warning about an insecure certificate.

You will need the OpenSSL command line tool installed. It probably already is.

shell> mkdir cert && cd cert
shell> openssl genrsa > privkey.pem
shell> openssl req -new -x509 -key privkey.pem -out mycert.pem -days 1095
shell> ls
mycert.pem privkey.pem

Now, you need to edit CouchDB's configuration, either by editing your local.ini file or using the /_config API calls or the configuration screen in Futon. Here is what you need to do in local.ini, you can infer what needs doing in the other places.

Be sure to make these edits. Under [daemons] you should see:

; enable SSL support by uncommenting the following line and supply the PEM's below.
; the default ssl port CouchDB listens on is 6984
;httpsd = {couch_httpd, start_link, [https]}

Here uncomment the last line:

httpsd = {couch_httpd, start_link, [https]}

Next, under [ssl] you will see:

;cert_file = /full/path/to/server_cert.pem
;key_file = /full/path/to/server_key.pem

Uncomment and adjust the paths so it matches your system's paths:

cert_file = /home/jan/cert/mycert.pem
key_file = /home/jan/cert/privkey.pem

For more information please read http://www.openssl.org/docs/HOWTO/certificates.txt.

Now start (or restart) CouchDB. You should be able to connect to it using HTTPS on port 6984:

shell> curl https://127.0.0.1:6984/
curl: (60) SSL certificate problem, verify that the CA cert is OK. Details:
error:14090086:SSL routines:SSL3_GET_SERVER_CERTIFICATE:certificate verify failed
More details here: http://curl.haxx.se/docs/sslcerts.html

curl performs SSL certificate verification by default, using a "bundle"
of Certificate Authority (CA) public keys (CA certs). If the default
bundle file isn't adequate, you can specify an alternate file
using the --cacert option.
If this HTTPS server uses a certificate signed by a CA represented in
the bundle, the certificate verification probably failed due to a
problem with the certificate (it might be expired, or the name might
not match the domain name in the URL).
If you'd like to turn off curl's verification of the certificate, use
the -k (or --insecure) option.

Oh no what happened?! — Remember, clients will notify their users that your certificate is self signed. curl is the client in this case and it notifies you. Luckily you trust yourself (don't you?) and you can specify the -k option as the message reads:

shell> curl -k https://127.0.0.1:6984/
{"couchdb":"Welcome","version":"1.1.0"}