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Let's Encrypt

Let's Encrypt is a nonprofit certificate authority providing TLS (Transport Layer Security) certificates for web domains. It enables HTTPS (Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure) for encrypted communication between server and clients.

List certificates​

sudo certbot certificates

Create certificate​

There's an API rate limit on how many certificate requests can be made, something like 10 certificates from a single IP address every 3 hours. For this reason, it's recommended to do a "dry run" to test if the command would be successful, then make the actual request.

Dry run​

sudo certbot certonly --test-cert --dry-run -d example.com -d www.example.com --webroot -w /home/ubuntu/apps/example.com

  • --test-cert - Make request to test server

  • --dry-run - Do a dry run without generating an actual certificate

  • -d example.com - Specify domain

  • -d www.example.com - Optionally www subdomain

  • --webroot -w /home/ubuntu/apps/example.com - Path to site folder

    A temporary file is created in a folder .well-known for Let's Encrypt API to verify the domain ownership.

Actual​

Same as above, but without --test-cert --dry-run.

sudo certbot certonly -d example.com -d www.example.com --webroot -w /home/ubuntu/apps/example.com

Delete certificate​

sudo certbot delete --cert-name example.com