### Author:  [@mnordhoff](https://community.letsencrypt.org/u/mnordhoff)
#### Post date: [January 30, 2019, 5:04am UTC](https://community.letsencrypt.org/t/certbot-auto-renewal/84545/6 "2019-01-30T05:04:05Z")
Ah! That's what I said it probably was:
> [@mnordhoff](#):
>
> This probably means that the `nginx` executable isn’t in the `PATH`
> [@mnordhoff](#):
>
> Check where `nginx` is – e.g. with `which nginx` – and make sure it’s within the `PATH` used by cron.
A newer version of Certbot added a more clear error message.
>
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### Author:  [@asbern](https://community.letsencrypt.org/u/asbern)
#### Post date: [January 30, 2019, 5:22am UTC](https://community.letsencrypt.org/t/certbot-auto-renewal/84545/7 "2019-01-30T05:22:05Z")
How to change nginx path? any idea on that?
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### Author:  [@rg305](https://community.letsencrypt.org/u/rg305)
#### Post date: [January 30, 2019, 5:26am UTC](https://community.letsencrypt.org/t/certbot-auto-renewal/84545/8 "2019-01-30T05:26:28Z")
Show:
`set | grep -i 'path='`
`which nginx`
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### Author:  [@asbern](https://community.letsencrypt.org/u/asbern)
#### Post date: [January 30, 2019, 5:28am UTC](https://community.letsencrypt.org/t/certbot-auto-renewal/84545/9 "2019-01-30T05:28:27Z")
PATH=/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin:/root/bin
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### Author:  [@rg305](https://community.letsencrypt.org/u/rg305)
#### Post date: [January 30, 2019, 5:32am UTC](https://community.letsencrypt.org/t/certbot-auto-renewal/84545/10 "2019-01-30T05:32:01Z")
The PATH looks OK.
Please show all of these:
- `which nginx`
- `crontab -l`
- `sudo crontab -l`
- `systemctl list-timers --all | grep certbot`
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### Author:  [@asbern](https://community.letsencrypt.org/u/asbern)
#### Post date: [January 30, 2019, 5:37am UTC](https://community.letsencrypt.org/t/certbot-auto-renewal/84545/11 "2019-01-30T05:37:13Z")
# which nginx
/usr/sbin/nginx
# crontab -l
0 0,12 \* \* \* python -c ‘import random; import time; time.sleep(random.random() \* 3600)’ && certbot renew
# systemctl list-timers --all | grep certbot
No output was shown for this
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### Author:  [@rg305](https://community.letsencrypt.org/u/rg305)
#### Post date: [January 30, 2019, 5:43am UTC](https://community.letsencrypt.org/t/certbot-auto-renewal/84545/12 "2019-01-30T05:43:11Z")
NGINX is in the PATH (for root user).
> [@asbern](#):
>
> **/usr/sbin** /nginx
> [@asbern](#):
>
> PATH=/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin: **/usr/sbin** :/usr/bin:/root/bin
Try [one of these should work]:
`certbot renew --dry-run --nginx-ctl /usr/sbin/nginx`
or
`certbot renew --dry-run --nginx-ctl /usr/sbin`
OR it will give us more clues...
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### Author:  [@mnordhoff](https://community.letsencrypt.org/u/mnordhoff)
#### Post date: [January 30, 2019, 5:45am UTC](https://community.letsencrypt.org/t/certbot-auto-renewal/84545/13 "2019-01-30T05:45:24Z")
Cron could be operating with a different `PATH`.
I can’t say what your cron daemon’s default `PATH` is or what the best way to change it is, though.
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### Author:  [@rg305](https://community.letsencrypt.org/u/rg305)
#### Post date: [January 30, 2019, 5:54am UTC](https://community.letsencrypt.org/t/certbot-auto-renewal/84545/14 "2019-01-30T05:54:33Z")
> [@mnordhoff](#):
>
> Cron could be operating with a different `PATH` .
Yeah - very possible.
Not even sure how to get that "value" out...
---
### Author:  [@asbern](https://community.letsencrypt.org/u/asbern)
#### Post date: [January 30, 2019, 6:21am UTC](https://community.letsencrypt.org/t/certbot-auto-renewal/84545/15 "2019-01-30T06:21:11Z")
# certbot renew --dry-run --nginx-ctl /usr/sbin
Saving debug log to /var/log/letsencrypt/letsencrypt.log
* * *
Processing /etc/letsencrypt/renewal/www.example.com.conf
* * *
Cert not due for renewal, but simulating renewal for dry run
Could not choose appropriate plugin: The nginx plugin is not working; there may be problems with your existing configuration.
The error was: NoInstallationError(“Could not find a usable ‘nginx’ binary. Ensure nginx exists, the binary is executable, and your PATH is set correctly.”,)
Attempting to renew cert ([www.example.com](http://www.example.com)) from /etc/letsencrypt/renewal/www.example.com.conf produced an unexpected error: The nginx plugin is not working; there may be problems with your existing configuration.
The error was: NoInstallationError(“Could not find a usable ‘nginx’ binary. Ensure nginx exists, the binary is executable, and your PATH is set correctly.”,). Skipping.
All renewal attempts failed. The following certs could not be renewed:
/etc/letsencrypt/live/www.example.com/fullchain.pem (failure)
* * *
\*\* DRY RUN: simulating ‘certbot renew’ close to cert expiry
\*\* (The test certificates below have not been saved.)
All renewal attempts failed. The following certs could not be renewed:
/etc/letsencrypt/live/www.example.com/fullchain.pem (failure)
\*\* DRY RUN: simulating ‘certbot renew’ close to cert expiry
\*\* (The test certificates above have not been saved.)
* * *
1 renew failure(s), 0 parse failure(s)
#certbot renew --dry-run --nginx-ctl /usr/sbin/nginx
was working fine, certificate renewed successfully
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### Author:  [@system](https://community.letsencrypt.org/u/system)
#### Post date: [March 1, 2019, 6:21am UTC](https://community.letsencrypt.org/t/certbot-auto-renewal/84545/16 "2019-03-01T06:21:14Z")
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