Configuring Let's Encrypt
Installing Let’s Encrypt
A Let’s Encrypt Python script called acme_tiny.py puts a file with random name under /etc/cloud66/webroot/ on one of your web servers. Then tries to connect to your server and download that file via HTTP. It needs
a non-secure HTTP endpoint (/.well-known/acme_challenge/*) to invoke and reissue certificates.
Note
Let's encrypt needs to be updated every 3 months, so you'd need to keep the settings needed for issueing.
Troubleshooting
If, while installing, you see an error simmilar to this:
Wrote file to /etc/cloud66/webroot/FILENAME, but couldn't download http://DNS_NAME/.well-known/acme-challenge/FILENAME
You need to go through the following steps:
- Delete the SSL certificate (vital)
- If your infrastructure uses Cloudflare and you have a global HTTPS redirect you need a pagerule to allow traffic from Let’s Encrypt through HTTP, which requires a non-secure HTTP endpoint (/.well-known/acme_challenge/*) to invoke and reissue certificates.
- There could be some parts missing in your Nginx config, probably due to customization or config file not being up to date. The following parts take care of redirections - like HTTP to HTTPS redirection or adding/removing www to the link. Ensure these sections of your own Nginx config match up with the examples below.
http {
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server {
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## This block gives HTTP access to LetsEncrypts to validate the certificate issuance
location /.well-known/acme-challenge/ {
{% if letsencrypt_primary_address == empty %}
# serve letsencrypt requests from here
alias /etc/cloud66/webroot/;
try_files $uri =404;
{% else %}
# serve letsencrypt request from another host
proxy_pass http://{{ letsencrypt_primary_address }};
{% endif %}
}
## From here is for taking care of redirections settings for your application
{% if red_http_to_https == true %}
{% if has_load_balancer %}
set $http_rewrite 0;
if ($http_x_forwarded_proto = "http") {
set $http_rewrite 1;
}
if ($http_x_forwarded_proto = "") {
set $http_rewrite 1;
}
if ($request_uri ~ ^/.well-known/acme-challenge/.*$) {
set $http_rewrite 0;
}
if ($http_rewrite = 1) {
rewrite ^(.*) https://$host$1 permanent;
}
{% else %}
if ($request_uri !~ ^/.well-known/acme-challenge/.*$) {
rewrite ^(.*) https://$host$1 permanent;
}
{% endif %}
{% endif %}
{% if red_www == 0 %}
server_name _;
{% endif %}
{% if red_www == 2 %}
set $www_rewrite 0;
if ($http_host ~ ^(?!www\.)(.*)) {
set $www_rewrite 1;
set $www_host $1;
}
if ($request_uri ~ ^/.well-known/acme-challenge/.*$) {
set $www_rewrite 0;
}
if ($www_rewrite = 1) {
return 301 $scheme://www.$www_host$request_uri;
}
{% endif %}
{% if red_www == 1 %}
set $www_rewrite 0;
if ($http_host ~ ^www\.(.*)$) {
set $www_rewrite 1;
set $www_host $1;
}
if ($request_uri ~ ^/.well-known/acme-challenge/.*$) {
set $www_rewrite 0;
}
if ($www_rewrite = 1) {
return 301 $scheme://$www_host$request_uri;
}
{% endif %}
.
.
.
}
}
