Acme-challenge 404 error

Help
1

Hello. My domain is jcouncil.net. I have nginx 1.13.1, I’m managing it via WinSCP. I have no ACME client (or at least I don’t know which one there is and where the previous site owner put it, and I have no contact with him), I have no root access, I can’t change server configuration.
I try to renew the sertificate via https://www.sslforfree.com. I’ve created .well-known/acme-challenge directory and uploaded the files, but I get 404 error when I try to access them.
I DON’T get 404 error when I:

  • put files in .well-known directly
  • put files that have extensions in .well-known/acme-challenge directory.

So there’s something wrong precisely with extensionless files in .well-known/acme-challenge directory, but I honestly don’t know what. Google didn’t really help me, as most of the advices mention certbot or changing server configuration, and I don’t have access to any of it.
What can I do with my current access level?

2

What’s your domain name? That’s very odd behavior, given that it only affects the acme-challenge directory` and not its parent.

You can try use DNS validation, but I’m guessing you don’t have access to DNS management either.

(It seems like your message keeps getting deleted or spam filtered or something. Maybe try remove the links in your new post, or edit your original post with those details?)

3

My domain name is jcouncil.net.
How can I check if I have DNS management access?

6

Yeah, it didn’t accept my reply with the domain name. I’ve added it to the original post.
How can I check whether I have DNS management access?

7

Looks like all the posts caught up! Maybe Discourse was having database issues.

So, for DNS, you’d need access to their DigitalOcean account, since that’s where the DNS is currently hosted.

8

I see, and I don’t have access to DigitalOcean account either.
Maybe I could try something with .htaccess or something like that?

9

They got flagged by Akismet and were in the spam queue :sweat:

10

If it's truly an nginx server (which is questionable, it seems like either there is a separate server sitting in front of nginx, or it is a heavily source-modified nginx), then no. You could only address this by modifying the nginx configuration and restarting the webserver.

11

Even if you'd get a certificate through a website like sslforfree, you'd need a way to install the certificate and private key in nginx.
Without root access, the only way to do that is with some kind of control panel like for example "cPanel" or "Plesk".

If you don't have root access and don't have some sort of control panel, you would have to ask the customer service of your hosting provider to d it for you.

1 Like
12

I see, so it seems there’s really nothing I can do here. I’m really new to server administration (I’ve only had experience with cPanel+FTP site earlier) so I thought I just didn’t know what to google.
Thanks!

13

Depends on what your hosting provider is offering. Which control panel. What level of customer support.

14

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