CERBOT ERR: Timeout during connect (likely firewall problem)

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Please fill out the fields below so we can help you better. Note: you must provide your domain name to get help. Domain names for issued certificates are all made public in Certificate Transparency logs (e.g. crt.sh | example.com), so withholding your domain name here does not increase secrecy, but only makes it harder for us to provide help.

My domain is:histoire.espacedesgaulois.org

I ran this command: sudo certbot --apache
apache status is on
apache2.service - The Apache HTTP Server
Loaded: loaded (/lib/systemd/system/apache2.service; enabled; vendor pre>
Active: active (running) since Fri 2025-11-07 14:45:33 CET; 19min ago
Docs: Apache HTTP Server Version 2.4 Documentation - Apache HTTP Server Version 2.4
Main PID: 13741 (apache2)
Tasks: 55 (limit: 4455)
Memory: 7.0M
CGroup: /system.slice/apache2.service
├─13741 /usr/sbin/apache2 -k start
├─15594 /usr/sbin/apache2 -k start
└─15595 /usr/sbin/apache2 -k start

nov. 07 14:45:33 puyuelo-K72Jr systemd[1]: Starting The Apache HTTP Server...
nov. 07 14:45:33 puyuelo-K72Jr apachectl[13740]: AH00558: apache2: Could not >
nov. 07 14:45:33 puyuelo-K72Jr systemd[1]: Started The Apache HTTP Server.

It produced this output:/usr/bin/certbot:6: DeprecationWarning: pkg_resources is deprecated as an API. See Package Discovery and Resource Access using pkg_resources - setuptools 80.9.0 documentation
from pkg_resources import load_entry_point
Saving debug log to /var/log/letsencrypt/letsencrypt.log
Plugins selected: Authenticator apache, Installer apache
Enter email address (used for urgent renewal and security notices) (Enter 'c' to
cancel): jpuy888@laposte.net

Please read the Terms of Service at
https://letsencrypt.org/documents/LE-SA-v1.5-February-24-2025.pdf. You must
agree in order to register with the ACME server at
https://acme-v02.api.letsencrypt.org/directory

(A)gree/(C)ancel: A

Would you be willing to share your email address with the Electronic Frontier
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organization that develops Certbot? We'd like to send you email about our work
encrypting the web, EFF news, campaigns, and ways to support digital freedom.

(Y)es/(N)o: N
No names were found in your configuration files. Please enter in your domain
name(s) (comma and/or space separated) (Enter 'c' to cancel): histoire.espacedesgaulois.org www.histoire.espacedesgaulois.org
Obtaining a new certificate
Performing the following challenges:
http-01 challenge for histoire.espacedesgaulois.org
http-01 challenge for www.histoire.espacedesgaulois.org
Enabled Apache rewrite module
Waiting for verification...
Challenge failed for domain www.histoire.espacedesgaulois.org
Challenge failed for domain histoire.espacedesgaulois.org
http-01 challenge for www.histoire.espacedesgaulois.org
http-01 challenge for histoire.espacedesgaulois.org
Cleaning up challenges
Some challenges have failed.

IMPORTANT NOTES:

  • The following errors were reported by the server:

    Domain: histoire.espacedesgaulois.org
    Type: connection
    Detail: 92.184.100.31: Fetching
    http://histoire.espacedesgaulois.org/.well-known/acme-challenge/iq9btzpnkU_x4HG1V4D_WB9r_vmDYNBqSmJzUG1GsRo:
    Timeout during connect (likely firewall problem)

    To fix these errors, please make sure that your domain name was
    entered correctly and the DNS A/AAAA record(s) for that domain
    contain(s) the right IP address. Additionally, please check that
    your computer has a publicly routable IP address and that no
    firewalls are preventing the server from communicating with the
    client. If you're using the webroot plugin, you should also verify
    that you are serving files from the webroot path you provided.

  • The following errors were reported by the server:

    Domain: www.histoire.espacedesgaulois.org
    Type: dns
    Detail: DNS problem: NXDOMAIN looking up A for
    www.histoire.espacedesgaulois.org - check that a DNS record exists
    for this domain; DNS problem: NXDOMAIN looking up AAAA for
    www.histoire.espacedesgaulois.org - check that a DNS record exists
    for this domain

  • Your account credentials have been saved in your Certbot
    configuration directory at /etc/letsencrypt. You should make a
    secure backup of this folder now. This configuration directory will
    also contain certificates and private keys obtained by Certbot so
    making regular backups of this folder is ideal.

My web server is (include version): apache

The operating system my web server runs on is (include version):

My hosting provider, if applicable, is:

I can login to a root shell on my machine (yes or no, or I don't know):yes

I'm using a control panel to manage my site (no, or provide the name and version of the control panel):

The version of my client is (e.g. output of certbot --version or certbot-auto --version if you're using Certbot): certbot 0.40.0

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This is telling you that any attempt to connect to your server doesn't get a response (that's the "timeout during connect", it tries to connect, but eventually gives up waiting since no response comes back). And it's a "likely firewall problem" in that if you do in fact have a server running listening on port 80, then there's some firewall in the way that's specifically blocking it. You need to have a working web site before you can get a certificate for it.

This is telling you that the name www.histoire.espacedesgaulois.org doesn't exist at all. You either want to have the name exist (add it to DNS, point it to your server, and configure the server to expect requests for that name), or you want to not request a certificate for it. While many people might intuitively think that a "www." version of the name is the "same thing" as the name without it, really as far as the Internet protocols are concerned it's an entirely separate name that needs to be set up, even though most server administrators set it up to do the same thing (or to redirect to a version without the "www.").

This isn't related to your problem, but that version of certbot is quite old, which likely means you're similarly using an old operating system (or at least a version with an old repository of packages). You may want to make sure that your software is on a recent supported version and up-to-date.

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