Which certificate chain file to include with self-signed certificate?

I want some pages that require passwords on my website to be secure

just a note. As a best practice, entire web site should be protected with SSL. Here is a blog post that explains why SSL on authentication pages is not sufficient: Securing your ASP.NET MVC 4 App and the new AllowAnonymous Attribute (although it is related to ASP MVC, other platforms are affected too).

but I can't seem to figure out what is the SSLCertificateChainFile

I think, it is a PKCS#7 container that contains intermediate CA certificates. With self-signed certificates, there are no other certificates, therefore (sorry, I'm not a Apache expert) this file may be:

1. Self-signed certificate itself (only public part)
2. Can be deleted (this file doesn't make any sense with self-signed SSL certificates)
3. Empty (less likely, Apache may complain about wrong file format).

I would go with step 1, pass the same certificate to SSLCertificateFile and SSLCertificateChainFile parameters.

If you are using a self-signed certificate, there are is no certificate authority or other certificates in certificate chain. Therefore just do not include SSLCertificateChainFile in <VirtualHost> section.