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User Guide

Table of Contents

Installation

letsencrypt-auto

letsencrypt-auto is a wrapper which installs some dependencies from your OS standard package repositories (e.g using apt-get or yum), and for other dependencies it sets up a virtualized Python environment with packages downloaded from PyPI [1]. It also provides automated updates.

Firstly, please install Git and run the following commands:

git clone https://github.com/letsencrypt/letsencrypt
cd letsencrypt

Warning

Alternatively you could download the ZIP archive and extract the snapshot of our repository, but it's strongly recommended to use the above method instead.

To install and run the client you just need to type:

./letsencrypt-auto

Throughout the documentation, whenever you see references to letsencrypt script/binary, you can substitute in letsencrypt-auto. For example, to get the help you would type:

./letsencrypt-auto --help

Running with Docker

Docker is an amazingly simple and quick way to obtain a certificate. However, this mode of operation is unable to install certificates or configure your webserver, because our installer plugins cannot reach it from inside the Docker container.

You should definitely read the :ref:`where-certs` section, in order to know how to manage the certs manually. https://github.com/letsencrypt/letsencrypt/wiki/Ciphersuite-guidance provides some information about recommended ciphersuites. If none of these make much sense to you, you should definitely use the letsencrypt-auto method, which enables you to use installer plugins that cover both of those hard topics.

If you're still not convinced and have decided to use this method, from the server that the domain you're requesting a cert for resolves to, install Docker, then issue the following command:

sudo docker run -it --rm -p 443:443 -p 80:80 --name letsencrypt \
            -v "/etc/letsencrypt:/etc/letsencrypt" \
            -v "/var/lib/letsencrypt:/var/lib/letsencrypt" \
            quay.io/letsencrypt/letsencrypt:latest auth

and follow the instructions (note that auth command is explicitly used - no installer plugins involved). Your new cert will be available in /etc/letsencrypt/live on the host.

Operating System Packages

FreeBSD

  • Port: cd /usr/ports/security/py-letsencrypt && make install clean
  • Package: pkg install py27-letsencrypt

Other Operating Systems

Unfortunately, this is an ongoing effort. If you'd like to package Let's Encrypt client for your distribution of choice please have a look at the :doc:`packaging`.

From source

Installation from source is only supported for developers and the whole process is described in the :doc:`contributing`.

Warning

Please do not use python setup.py install or python pip install .. Please do not attempt the installation commands as superuser/root and/or without virtual environment, e.g. sudo python setup.py install, sudo pip install, sudo ./venv/bin/.... These modes of operation might corrupt your operating system and are not supported by the Let's Encrypt team!

Comparison of different methods

Unless you have a very specific requirements, we kindly ask you to use the letsencrypt-auto method. It's the fastest, the most thoroughly tested and the most reliable way of getting our software and the free SSL certificates!

Plugins

Officially supported plugins:

Plugin A I Notes and status
standalone Y N Very stable. Uses port 80 (force by --standalone-supported-challenges http-01) or 443 (force by --standalone-supported-challenges tls-sni-01).
apache Y Y Alpha. Automates Apache installation, works fairly well but on Debian-based distributions only for now.
webroot Y N Works with already running webserver, by writing necessary files to the disk (--webroot-path should be pointed to your public_html). Currently, when multiple domains are specified (-d), they must all use the same web root path.
manual Y N Hidden from standard UI, use with -a manual. Requires to copy and paste commands into a new terminal session. Allows to run client on machine different than target webserver, e.g. your laptop.
nginx Y Y Very experimental. Not included in letsencrypt-auto.

Third party plugins are listed at https://github.com/letsencrypt/letsencrypt/wiki/Plugins. If that's not enough, you can always :ref:`write your own plugin <dev-plugin>`.

Renewal

Note

Let's Encrypt CA issues short lived certificates (90 days). Make sure you renew the certificates at least once in 3 months.

In order to renew certificates simply call the letsencrypt (or letsencrypt-auto) again, and use the same values when prompted. You can automate it slightly by passing necessary flags on the CLI (see --help all), or even further using the :ref:`config-file`. If you're sure that UI doesn't prompt for any details you can add the command to crontab (make it less than every 90 days to avoid problems, say every month).

Please note that the CA will send notification emails to the address you provide if you do not renew certificates that are about to expire.

Let's Encrypt is working hard on automating the renewal process. Until the tool is ready, we are sorry for the inconvenience!

Where are my certificates?

First of all, we encourage you to use Apache or nginx installers, both which perform the certificate management automatically. If, however, you prefer to manage everything by hand, this section provides information on where to find necessary files.

All generated keys and issued certificates can be found in /etc/letsencrypt/live/$domain. Rather than copying, please point your (web) server configuration directly to those files (or create symlinks). During the renewal, /etc/letsencrypt/live is updated with the latest necessary files.

Note

/etc/letsencrypt/archive and /etc/letsencrypt/keys contain all previous keys and certificates, while /etc/letsencrypt/live symlinks to the latest versions.

The following files are available:

privkey.pem

Private key for the certificate.

Warning

This must be kept secret at all times! Never share it with anyone, including Let's Encrypt developers. You cannot put it into a safe, however - your server still needs to access this file in order for SSL/TLS to work.

This is what Apache needs for SSLCertificateKeyFile, and nginx for ssl_certificate_key.

cert.pem

Server certificate only.

This is what Apache needs for SSLCertificateFile.

chain.pem

All certificates that need to be served by the browser excluding server certificate, i.e. root and intermediate certificates only.

This is what Apache needs for SSLCertificateChainFile.

fullchain.pem

All certificates, including server certificate. This is concatenation of chain.pem and cert.pem.

This is what nginx needs for ssl_certificate.

For both chain files, all certificates are ordered from root (primary certificate) towards leaf.

Please note, that you must use either chain.pem or fullchain.pem. In case of webservers, using only cert.pem, will cause nasty errors served through the browsers!

Note

All files are PEM-encoded (as the filename suffix suggests). If you need other format, such as DER or PFX, then you could convert using openssl, but this means you will not benefit from automatic renewal!

Configuration file

It is possible to specify configuration file with letsencrypt-auto --config cli.ini (or shorter -c cli.ini). An example configuration file is shown below:

By default, the following locations are searched:

  • /etc/letsencrypt/cli.ini
  • $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/letsencrypt/cli.ini (or ~/.config/letsencrypt/cli.ini if $XDG_CONFIG_HOME is not set).

Getting help

If you're having problems you can chat with us on IRC (#letsencrypt @ Freenode) or get support on our forums.

If you find a bug in the software, please do report it in our issue tracker. Remember to give us us as much information as possible:

  • copy and paste exact command line used and the output (though mind that the latter might include some personally identifiable information, including your email and domains)
  • copy and paste logs from /var/log/letsencrypt (though mind they also might contain personally identifiable information)
  • copy and paste letsencrypt --version output
  • your operating system, including specific version
  • specify which installation method you've chosen

Footnotes

[1]By using this virtualized Python environment (virtualenv) we don't pollute the main OS space with packages from PyPI!