Certbot failed to authenticate some domains (authenticator: nginx)

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My domain is:
bakecake.3m.ru
I ran this command:
certbot --nginx
It produced this output:
Certbot failed to authenticate some domains (authenticator: nginx). The Certificate Authority reported these problems:
Domain: bakecake.3m.ru
Type: unauthorized
Detail: 91.200.84.25: Invalid response from http://bakecake.3m.ru/.well-known/acme-challenge/uA52oCN4_pIh8fseN_-jYV5L4yFkfC8SjC6-Pjf7S10: 404
My web server is (include version):
nginx/1.22.1
The operating system my web server runs on is (include version):
Ubuntu 22.04.1
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):
no
The version of my client is (e.g. output of certbot --version or certbot-auto --version if you're using Certbot):
certbot 1.32.2

1 Like

Welcome to the community @IBA20

I don't see anything obviously wrong with your DNS or HTTP site. Can you show us the result of the nginx -T command? (capital T). Also, please put 3 backticks before and after the output as it will be very long. Like this:

```
output of: nginx -T
```

3 Likes

Hello, Mike!

output of nginx -T:

nginx: the configuration file /etc/nginx/nginx.conf syntax is ok
nginx: configuration file /etc/nginx/nginx.conf test is successful
# configuration file /etc/nginx/nginx.conf:

user  nginx;
worker_processes  auto;

error_log  /var/log/nginx/error.log notice;
pid        /run/nginx.pid;


events {
    worker_connections  1024;
}


http {
    include       /etc/nginx/mime.types;
    default_type  application/octet-stream;

    log_format  main  '$remote_addr - $remote_user [$time_local] "$request" '
                      '$status $body_bytes_sent "$http_referer" '
                      '"$http_user_agent" "$http_x_forwarded_for"';

    access_log  /var/log/nginx/access.log  main;

    sendfile        on;
    #tcp_nopush     on;

    keepalive_timeout  65;

    #gzip  on;

    include /etc/nginx/conf.d/*.conf;
    include /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/*;
}

# configuration file /etc/nginx/mime.types:

types {
    text/html                                        html htm shtml;
    text/css                                         css;
    text/xml                                         xml;
    image/gif                                        gif;
    image/jpeg                                       jpeg jpg;
    application/javascript                           js;
    application/atom+xml                             atom;
    application/rss+xml                              rss;

    text/mathml                                      mml;
    text/plain                                       txt;
    text/vnd.sun.j2me.app-descriptor                 jad;
    text/vnd.wap.wml                                 wml;
    text/x-component                                 htc;

    image/avif                                       avif;
    image/png                                        png;
    image/svg+xml                                    svg svgz;
    image/tiff                                       tif tiff;
    image/vnd.wap.wbmp                               wbmp;
    image/webp                                       webp;
    image/x-icon                                     ico;
    image/x-jng                                      jng;
    image/x-ms-bmp                                   bmp;

    font/woff                                        woff;
    font/woff2                                       woff2;

    application/java-archive                         jar war ear;
    application/json                                 json;
    application/mac-binhex40                         hqx;
    application/msword                               doc;
    application/pdf                                  pdf;
    application/postscript                           ps eps ai;
    application/rtf                                  rtf;
    application/vnd.apple.mpegurl                    m3u8;
    application/vnd.google-earth.kml+xml             kml;
    application/vnd.google-earth.kmz                 kmz;
    application/vnd.ms-excel                         xls;
    application/vnd.ms-fontobject                    eot;
    application/vnd.ms-powerpoint                    ppt;
    application/vnd.oasis.opendocument.graphics      odg;
    application/vnd.oasis.opendocument.presentation  odp;
    application/vnd.oasis.opendocument.spreadsheet   ods;
    application/vnd.oasis.opendocument.text          odt;
    application/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.presentationml.presentation
                                                     pptx;
    application/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.spreadsheetml.sheet
                                                     xlsx;
    application/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.wordprocessingml.document
                                                     docx;
    application/vnd.wap.wmlc                         wmlc;
    application/wasm                                 wasm;
    application/x-7z-compressed                      7z;
    application/x-cocoa                              cco;
    application/x-java-archive-diff                  jardiff;
    application/x-java-jnlp-file                     jnlp;
    application/x-makeself                           run;
    application/x-perl                               pl pm;
    application/x-pilot                              prc pdb;
    application/x-rar-compressed                     rar;
    application/x-redhat-package-manager             rpm;
    application/x-sea                                sea;
    application/x-shockwave-flash                    swf;
    application/x-stuffit                            sit;
    application/x-tcl                                tcl tk;
    application/x-x509-ca-cert                       der pem crt;
    application/x-xpinstall                          xpi;
    application/xhtml+xml                            xhtml;
    application/xspf+xml                             xspf;
    application/zip                                  zip;

    application/octet-stream                         bin exe dll;
    application/octet-stream                         deb;
    application/octet-stream                         dmg;
    application/octet-stream                         iso img;
    application/octet-stream                         msi msp msm;

    audio/midi                                       mid midi kar;
    audio/mpeg                                       mp3;
    audio/ogg                                        ogg;
    audio/x-m4a                                      m4a;
    audio/x-realaudio                                ra;

    video/3gpp                                       3gpp 3gp;
    video/mp2t                                       ts;
    video/mp4                                        mp4;
    video/mpeg                                       mpeg mpg;
    video/quicktime                                  mov;
    video/webm                                       webm;
    video/x-flv                                      flv;
    video/x-m4v                                      m4v;
    video/x-mng                                      mng;
    video/x-ms-asf                                   asx asf;
    video/x-ms-wmv                                   wmv;
    video/x-msvideo                                  avi;
}

# configuration file /etc/nginx/conf.d/default.conf:
server {
    listen       80;
    server_name  localhost;

    #access_log  /var/log/nginx/host.access.log  main;

    location / {
        root   /usr/share/nginx/html;
        index  index.html index.htm;
    }

    #error_page  404              /404.html;

    # redirect server error pages to the static page /50x.html
    #
    error_page   500 502 503 504  /50x.html;
    location = /50x.html {
        root   /usr/share/nginx/html;
    }

    # proxy the PHP scripts to Apache listening on 127.0.0.1:80
    #
    #location ~ \.php$ {
    #    proxy_pass   http://127.0.0.1;
    #}

    # pass the PHP scripts to FastCGI server listening on 127.0.0.1:9000
    #
    #location ~ \.php$ {
    #    root           html;
    #    fastcgi_pass   127.0.0.1:9000;
    #    fastcgi_index  index.php;
    #    fastcgi_param  SCRIPT_FILENAME  /scripts$fastcgi_script_name;
    #    include        fastcgi_params;
    #}

    # deny access to .htaccess files, if Apache's document root
    # concurs with nginx's one
    #
    #location ~ /\.ht {
    #    deny  all;
    #}
}


# configuration file /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/bakecake:
server {
  listen bakecake.3m.ru:80;
  location / {
    include '/etc/nginx/proxy_params';
    proxy_pass http://127.0.0.1:8080/;
  }
  location /media/ {
    alias /opt/bakecake/media/;
  }
  location /static/ {
    alias /opt/bakecake/staticfiles/;
  }
}

# configuration file /etc/nginx/proxy_params:
proxy_set_header Host $http_host;
proxy_set_header X-Real-IP $remote_addr;
proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-For $proxy_add_x_forwarded_for;
proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-Proto $scheme;
1 Like

You should include a server_name value and I think you should change your listen clause also. Like below:

I think the certbot plug-in may not be handling your syntax properly. Below is a more common way to configure a server block.

3 Likes

Thank you!!! Including a server_name.. solved the problem!

3 Likes

Did you also change the listen statement?:

listen bakecake.3m.ru:80;
to:
listen 80;

2 Likes

Yes. But it works both with listen bakecake.3m.ru:80 and listen 80.

Using the name there is unnecessary and could be problematic if ever DNS can't properly resolve that name to the local IP address.

4 Likes

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