I'm trying to get SSL to run on my apache web server.

I do not have the DNS for the domain setup yet is that an issue?

How do I setup SSL on my web server?

When I start apache it fails.

root@vannevar:/etc/apache2/ssl# service apache2 start
 * Starting web server apache2                                                                                                                         Action 'start' failed.
The Apache error log may have more information.

The log stats that it's unable to read the certificate.

[Thu Jun 28 15:01:02 2012] [error] Init: Unable to read server certificate from file /etc/apache2/ssl/www.example.com.csr
[Thu Jun 28 15:01:02 2012] [error] SSL Library Error: 218529960 error:0D0680A8:asn1 encoding routines:ASN1_CHECK_TLEN:wrong tag
[Thu Jun 28 15:01:02 2012] [error] SSL Library Error: 218595386 error:0D07803A:asn1 encoding routines:ASN1_ITEM_EX_D2I:nested asn1 error

The contents of /etc/apache2/httpd.conf

ServerName [SERVERIP]

The contents of /etc/apache2/ports.conf

# If you just change the port or add more ports here, you will likely also
# have to change the VirtualHost statement in
# /etc/apache2/sites-enabled/000-default
# This is also true if you have upgraded from before 2.2.9-3 (i.e. from
# Debian etch). See /usr/share/doc/apache2.2-common/NEWS.Debian.gz and
# README.Debian.gz

NameVirtualHost [SERVERIP]:443
NameVirtualHost *:80
Listen 80

<IfModule mod_ssl.c>
    # If you add NameVirtualHost *:443 here, you will also have to change
    # the VirtualHost statement in /etc/apache2/sites-available/default-ssl
    # to <VirtualHost *:443>
    # Server Name Indication for SSL named virtual hosts is currently not
    # supported by MSIE on Windows XP.
    Listen 443
</IfModule>

<IfModule mod_gnutls.c>
    Listen 443
</IfModule>

The contents of /etc/apache2/sites-available/www.example.com

<VirtualHost *:80>
     ServerAdmin [email protected]
     ServerName example.com
     ServerAlias www.example.com
     DocumentRoot /srv/sites/example.com/public/
     ErrorLog /srv/sites/example.com/logs/error.log
     CustomLog /srv/sites/example.com/logs/access.log combined
</VirtualHost>

<VirtualHost [SERVERIP]:443>
     SSLEngine On
     SSLCertificateFile /etc/apache2/ssl/www.example.com.csr
     SSLCertificateKeyFile /etc/apache2/ssl/www.example.com.key
     SSLCACertificateFile /etc/apache2/ssl/comodo.crt

     ServerAdmin [email protected]
     ServerName example.com
     ServerAlias www.example.com
     DocumentRoot /srv/sites/example.com/public/
     ErrorLog /srv/sites/example.com/logs/error.log
     CustomLog /srv/sites/example.com/logs/access.log combined
</VirtualHost>