Certbot: error: unrecognized arguments: --dns-cloudfare --dns-cloudfare-credentials

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1

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My domain is: webqs.live

I ran this command:
sudo certbot certonly --cert-name cloudfare-xxx --dns-cloudfare --dns-cloudfare-credentials "\root\xxx" -d webqs.live --dry-run

It produced this output:
usage:
certbot [SUBCOMMAND] [options] [-d DOMAIN] [-d DOMAIN] ...

Certbot can obtain and install HTTPS/TLS/SSL certificates. By default,
it will attempt to use a webserver both for obtaining and installing the
certificate.
certbot: error: unrecognized arguments: --dns-cloudfare --dns-cloudfare-credentials \root\xxx

My web server is (include version): Apache/2.4.58 (Ubuntu)

The operating system my web server runs on is (include version): Ubuntu 24.04

My hosting provider, if applicable, is: Digital Ocean

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): no

The version of my client is (e.g. output of certbot --version or certbot-auto --version if you're using Certbot): certbot 2.10.0

Note: new server. Previously, just installed:
sudo snap set certbot trust-plugin-with-root=ok
sudo snap install certbot --classic
sudo snap install certbot-dns-cloudflare

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This suggests Certbot fails to separate these options from one another.

Options are usually separated by a regular space, but it seems there is no regular space between these options, but some other character. Maybe a non-breaking space? I dunno. How did you enter these options on the command line? Copy/paste perhaps?

Also, I'm pretty sure the "\root\xxx" value is not a valid Unix path? But that's a different thing besides the above.

Another thing: is there a specific reason why you're using the Cloudflare DNS plugin? It looks like there's nothing strange with your Apache setup and your website already has a Let's Encrypt certificate enabled, issued in mid April. Why are you trying to issue a new one?

1 Like
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Could it be a simple typo ... those should be cloudflare with an l after the f

6 Likes
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Hm, you're right. I thought that Certbot would stop after the first unknown argument, but it seems to be concatenating all the unknown arguments indeed :slight_smile:

I agree it's probably just a few typo's.

1 Like
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Yikes! How embarrassing! In the process of switching to cloudflare - and wondering where else I've made the same mistake!
Thanks for being a 2nd pair of eyes.

3 Likes
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