There are several reasons why one would set up an internal certificate authority. Some are configured to support strong authentication schemes, some for additional flexibility and convenience. I am going to cover the second part. In particular, it can be helpful for developers to have an internal certificate authority to issue certificates for development purposes. Websites used for development and internal testing are usually only used by a few individuals and are generally only accessible via internal networks or VPNs. Often, these sites do not even use TLS. But there are a few reasons why you should consider running TLS on all sites, including internal development sites: