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Dedicated Server: Setup Certbot on Linux

This guide was created with the following products:

(Details may vary with products from different providers but the main concepts remain the same)

Dedicated Server

Introduction​

SSL Certificates are essential parts of the internet, ensuring that data can be safely transmitted between client and host. In this guide, we will explore the process of setting up the open-source Certbot tool to request free SSL certificates from the Let's Encrypt non-profit certificate authority.

Preparation​

In order to make use of Certbot, you will require a Linux server and a Domain that you own. You need to have access to the DNS Settings of the Domain and you must create an A DNS record poitning at the IP Address of your Linux server for each root domain or sub domain you plan to use.

Certbot also had additional plugins which allows you to easily "one-click" setup a certificate for a domain which works with a variety of web servers such as Nginx or Apache. We recommend using Nginx as it is a highly performant and popular open-source web server. See our Linux reverse proxy guide for help setting this up.

Installation​

Begin by installing the open-source Certbot package, which you will be using to request free SSL certificates from Let's Encrypt.

sudo apt install certbot python3-certbot-nginx

With Certbot now installed, you can proceed to request certificates for your domain(s). Let's Encrypt and Certbot provide a variety of ACME Challenges to verify ownership of the domain.

We highly recommend using the default HTTP-01 method because it allows for automatic renewal. However, if you are facing issues with this, you can attempt to use the DNS-01 method as an alternative which is manual and does not support automatic renewals as it relies on verifying using a TXT DNS record.

Utilise Web Server Plugins

For readers using a web server such as Nginx, Apache or their own web server, we recommend moving to the Web Server Plugins section below which shows how to utilise additional Certbot plugins for these web servers to utilise a "one-click" install setup as well as request certificates without the need to turn off the web server.

HTTP-01 Challenge​

With Certbot now installed, you can now request certificates for your domain(s). In this example, we will be using standalone mode which means that Certbot will start a temporary web server for you to perform the necessary actions. This means that you must open port 80 in your firewall rules and not have any existing web servers or services running on port 80 to allow the temporary web server to start and allow the challenge to be fetched (hence the HTTP in the name of the challenge).

In the following command, you will utilise the --standalone parameter to inform Certbot that you wish to use the temporary web server option.

# For Root Domains
certbot certonly --standalone -d [your_root_domain] -d www.[your_root_domain]

# For Sub-Domains
certbot certonly --standalone -d [your_domain]

# Interactive Setup
certbot certonly --standalone

Once the command is ran, you may be required to follow a first-time interactive setup which will ask you to input an email address to be used for certificate communication followed by an optional mailing list and the terms & conditions which you must accept.

Certbot will now generate an ACME Challenge and host it using the temporary webserver. The Let's Encrypt servers will then attempt to fetch this from your server and upon success the certificates will be created and saved at the /etc/letsencrypt/live/[your_domain] path.

You can now utilise the SSL Certificates where ever you need simply by providing the local path to the certificates.

TXT DNS Record​

If you are facing difficulties or troubles with verifying your domain through the HTTP-01 method, as an alternative you can attempt to use the DNS-01 method which involves creating a TXT DNS record with a value provided by Let's Encrypt.

As previously mentioned, this method does not support automatic renewal unless you setup your own infrastructure to manage this. Thus, it is highly recommended to use the HTTP-01 method where possible.

In the following command, you will utilise the --preferred-challenges parameter to inform Certbot that you wish to use the DNS-01 method.

# For Root Domains
certbot certonly --preferred-challenges dns-01 -d [your_root_domain] -d www.[your_root_domain] --manual -m [your_root_domain] -m www.[your_root_domain]

# For Sub-Domains
certbot certonly --preferred-challenges dns-01 -d [your_domain] --manual -m [your_domain]

# Interactive Setup
certbot certonly --preferred-challenges dns-01

Once the command is ran, you may be required to follow a first-time interactive setup which will ask you to input an email address to be used for certificate communication followed by an optional mailing list and the terms & conditions which you must accept.

Certbot will now provide you with instructions on creating a TXT DNS record with a specific value that you must use. The target will typically be _acme-challenge. prefixed to your domain (in this example, it would be _acme-challenge.zapdocs.example.com) and the value it should be set to will be provided in the console.

Once you have created the record, press enter to continue. If everything is correct and propegated, the certificates will be created and saved at the /etc/letsencrypt/live/[your_domain] path.

note

Please be patient as DNS Record changes may take some time to propegate. This should typically occur within minutes, but on rare occurances it could take longer.

You can now utilise the SSL Certificates where ever you need simply by providing the local path to the certificates.

Web Server Plugins​

Certbot contains a range of different additional web server plugins which makes it even simpler to manage certificates as the plugins automatically edit the relevant server blocks for you. To use a plugin, you simply have the add the relevant parameter to your certbot command.

Both of these methods utilise the HTTP-01 challenge and work in essentially the same manner. When one of the plugins is used, Certbot will first search for the relevant server block that includes the requested domain as the server_name parameter. Once found, Certbot will generate an ACME Challenge and add a temporary location /.well-known/acme-challenge/... location block to the relevant server block config.

The Let's Encrypt servers will then attempt to fetch this from your server and upon success your certificate will be generated and your Nginx server block configuration will be automatically edited to adjust to using HTTPS (port 443) and to add paths to the newly generated certificate.

Nginx Plugin​

To make use of the Nginx plugin, you should use the --nginx parameter within your command as following.

# For Root Domains
certbot --nginx -d [your_root_domain] -d www.[your_root_domain]

# For Sub-Domains
certbot --nginx -d [your_domain]

# Interactive Setup
certbot --nginx
tip

If you wish to disable automatic "one-click" server block adjustments from Certbot, you can include certonly parameter within the command such as certbot certonly.

Automatic Renewal​

In most cases, Certbot should automatically setup certificate renewal for you through the use of cronjob and/or systemd timer. You can confirm this by running the following command which utilises the --dry-run parameter to test the process.

certbot renew --dry-run
tip

As previously mentioned, the DNS-01 method does not support automatic renewal via Certbot, unless you setup your own infrastructure to manage this. Thus, it is highly recommended to use the HTTP-01 method.

This should be successful if everything is as expected. If you wish to view or make changes to the automatic renewal, the command will be found in one of the following locations: /etc/crontab/, /etc/cron.*/* or via systemctl list-timers.

Manual Cronjob Setup​

If for some reason automatic renewal is not setup for you, you can add this yourself via cronjob. Open the crontab menu using crontab -e. If this is your first time doing this, you may be prompted to select an editor. Select the first option which should be /bin/nano.

With the file now open in nano, simply add the following line to run the renewal every day at 6am local time.

0 6 * * * certbot renew

Save the file and quit nano by using CTRL + X, followed by Y to confirm and lastly ENTER.

Conclusion​

You have successfully setup Certbot for your domain(s) through a variety of methods including standalone, web root or via one of the plugins, providing your website with secure data transmission via HTTPS. For further questions or assistance, please don’t hesitate to contact our support team, which is available daily to assist you! 🙂