Certbot failed to authenticate domain

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1

I know this is probably something super basic, but this is my first time using Certbot. Thanks for the help!

My domain is: cancerfu.org

I ran this command: sudo certbot --apache

It produced this output:

http-01 challenge for www.cancerfu.org
Waiting for verification...
Challenge failed for domain www.cancerfu.org
http-01 challenge for www.cancerfu.org

Certbot failed to authenticate some domains (authenticator: apache). The Certificate Authority reported these problems:
Domain: www.cancerfu.org
Type: dns
Detail: DNS problem: NXDOMAIN looking up A for www.cancerfu.org - check that a DNS record exists for this domain; DNS problem: NXDOMAIN looking up AAAA for www.cancerfu.org - check that a DNS record exists for this domain

Hint: The Certificate Authority failed to verify the temporary Apache configuration changes made by Certbot. Ensure that the listed domains point to this Apache server and that it is accessible from the internet.

Cleaning up challenges
Some challenges have failed.

My web server is (include version): Apache 2.4.58

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

My hosting provider, if applicable, is: Linode

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): Nope

The version of my client is (e.g. output of certbot --version or certbot-auto --version if you're using Certbot): 2.9.0

2

This is saying that the name www.cancerfu.org doesn't exist. A host name with and without the www. are treated as two entirely different names by the Internet standards, even though most people would expect them to end up at the same place.

You probably want to either:

  1. Configure www.cancerfu.org in your DNS and web server to work, just like you may have already done for cancerfu.org, or
  2. Don't request a certificate that includes the name www.cancerfu.org if you're not intending to use it and don't expect users to try typing it in.
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3

Thanks! This was exactly the issue. I figured it was something silly like that.

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