How to fix the Intermediate Certificate error in Laravel Forge (nginx)

10/21/2014

When setting up a new site in Laravel Forge with an SSL certificate, I kept on coming across an "Intermediate Certificate" error in some browsers and SSL checkers online. From always using Apache in the past, I had never come across this before.

After a lot of poking and prodding around the internet I was able to find a solution. In nginx, which is what Laravel Forge uses, you need to include the certificate bundle that comes with your standard certificate. I usually get my personal and side project SSL certificates from GoDaddy.com, but this will work with any SSL provider.

Once you download the SSL files to your computer (usually a zip file), open your terminal and enter the following:

cd ~/Downloads/path/to/ssl
cat godaddy-ca.crt gd_bundle.crt > godaddy-combined.crt

Where godaddy-ca.crt is your certificate file, gd_bundle.crt is your additional bundle file from your provider, and godaddy-combined.crt is the new name you want your certificate to be. Now simply upload your godaddy-combined.crt file to Laravel Forge, and you'll be all set.

Note: If you want to skip this step and just copy/paste your SSL into the Forge interface, you can do that too. Just make sure that you paste your certificate code BEFORE your bundle code.