Certbot failed to authenticate some domains

Help
1

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: netbox.air-band.net

I ran this command: certbot --nginx -v

It produced this output:
Saving debug log to /var/log/letsencrypt/letsencrypt.log
Plugins selected: Authenticator nginx, Installer nginx

Which names would you like to activate HTTPS for?
We recommend selecting either all domains, or all domains in a VirtualHost/server block.

1: netbox.air-band.net

Select the appropriate numbers separated by commas and/or spaces, or leave input
blank to select all options shown (Enter 'c' to cancel): 1
Requesting a certificate for netbox.air-band.net
Performing the following challenges:
http-01 challenge for netbox.air-band.net
Waiting for verification...
Challenge failed for domain netbox.air-band.net
http-01 challenge for netbox.air-band.net

Certbot failed to authenticate some domains (authenticator: nginx). The Certificate Authority reported these problems:
Domain: netbox.air-band.net
Type: unauthorized
Detail: 185.214.220.2: Invalid response from https://netbox.air-band.net/.well-known/acme-challenge/f3CDXk5UnH1jVUwJKsdX9JGv48gtXikrbAr9V-INPSc: 404

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

Cleaning up challenges
Some challenges have failed.
Ask for help or search for solutions at https://community.letsencrypt.org. See the logfile /var/log/letsencrypt/letsencrypt.log or re-run Certbot with -v for more details.

My web server is (include version): nginx version: nginx/1.18.0 (Ubuntu)

The operating system my web server runs on is (include version): Ubuntu 22.04.3 LTS

My hosting provider, if applicable, is: N/A

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 2.7.2

I have checked with the let's debug and all 3 tests pass so I'm at a loss as to why this is not working.

2

First, I see you have been getting certs from ZeroSSL for the past year. Did you use this same Certbot setup to get those certs?

3 Likes
3

Hello Mike,

No I didn't use certbot, I've been doing them manually every 3 months, hence trying to use certbot and lets encrypt today.

4

Okay, it's a fresh start then. Thanks. The --nginx plugin usually works very well. But, sometimes odd settings in nginx config can cause trouble.

Can you upload the config.txt file that results from below command? If you can't upload then paste its contents but add 3 backticks before and after like shown

sudo nginx -T >config.txt 2>&1

A capital T is essential. The file should be large

If pasting, 3 backticks like
```
contents
```

3 Likes
5 
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 www-data;
worker_processes auto;
pid /run/nginx.pid;
include /etc/nginx/modules-enabled/*.conf;

events {
        worker_connections 768;
        # multi_accept on;
}

http {

        ##
        # Basic Settings
        ##

        sendfile on;
        tcp_nopush on;
        types_hash_max_size 2048;
        # server_tokens off;

        # server_names_hash_bucket_size 64;
        # server_name_in_redirect off;

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

        ##
        # SSL Settings
        ##

        ssl_protocols TLSv1 TLSv1.1 TLSv1.2 TLSv1.3; # Dropping SSLv3, ref: POODLE
        ssl_prefer_server_ciphers on;

        ##
        # Logging Settings
        ##

        access_log /var/log/nginx/access.log;
        error_log /var/log/nginx/error.log;

        ##
        # Gzip Settings
        ##

        gzip on;

        # gzip_vary on;
        # gzip_proxied any;
        # gzip_comp_level 6;
        # gzip_buffers 16 8k;
        # gzip_http_version 1.1;
        # gzip_types text/plain text/css application/json application/javascript text/xml application/xml application/xml+rss text/javascript;

        ##
        # Virtual Host Configs
        ##

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


#mail {
#       # See sample authentication script at:
#       # http://wiki.nginx.org/ImapAuthenticateWithApachePhpScript
#
#       # auth_http localhost/auth.php;
#       # pop3_capabilities "TOP" "USER";
#       # imap_capabilities "IMAP4rev1" "UIDPLUS";
#
#       server {
#               listen     localhost:110;
#               protocol   pop3;
#               proxy      on;
#       }
#
#       server {
#               listen     localhost:143;
#               protocol   imap;
#               proxy      on;
#       }
#}

# configuration file /etc/nginx/modules-enabled/50-mod-http-geoip2.conf:
load_module modules/ngx_http_geoip2_module.so;

# configuration file /etc/nginx/modules-enabled/50-mod-http-image-filter.conf:
load_module modules/ngx_http_image_filter_module.so;

# configuration file /etc/nginx/modules-enabled/50-mod-http-xslt-filter.conf:
load_module modules/ngx_http_xslt_filter_module.so;

# configuration file /etc/nginx/modules-enabled/50-mod-mail.conf:
load_module modules/ngx_mail_module.so;

# configuration file /etc/nginx/modules-enabled/50-mod-stream.conf:
load_module modules/ngx_stream_module.so;

# configuration file /etc/nginx/modules-enabled/70-mod-stream-geoip2.conf:
load_module modules/ngx_stream_geoip2_module.so;

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

    application/font-woff                 woff;
    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.ms-excel              xls;
    application/vnd.ms-fontobject         eot;
    application/vnd.ms-powerpoint         ppt;
    application/vnd.wap.wmlc              wmlc;
    application/vnd.google-earth.kml+xml  kml;
    application/vnd.google-earth.kmz      kmz;
    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;

    application/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.wordprocessingml.document    docx;
    application/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.spreadsheetml.sheet          xlsx;
    application/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.presentationml.presentation  pptx;

    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/sites-enabled/netbox:
server {
    listen [::]:443 ssl ipv6only=off;

    # CHANGE THIS TO YOUR SERVER'S NAME
    server_name netbox.air-band.net;

    ssl_certificate /etc/ssl/certs/netbox.crt;
    ssl_certificate_key /etc/ssl/private/private.key;

    client_max_body_size 25m;

    location /static/ {
        alias /opt/netbox/netbox/static/;
    }

    location / {
        proxy_pass http://127.0.0.1:8001;
        proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-Host $http_host;
        proxy_set_header X-Real-IP $remote_addr;
        proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-Proto $scheme;
    }
}

server {
    # Redirect HTTP traffic to HTTPS
    listen [::]:80 ipv6only=off;
    server_name _;
    return 301 https://$host$request_uri;
}
6

I am pretty sure the trouble is from the server_name in your port 80 server block just being generic. Changing it to match the domain for the cert should work.

If you really want a default block to redirect then create a new server block like below instead. Although, you may need to change your listen statement format because I am pretty sure ipv6only=off can only be done once per nginx per port. Ask if you want help with that.

So, your port 80 server block like this

server {
    # Redirect HTTP traffic to HTTPS
    listen [::]:80 ipv6only=off;
#    server_name _;
    server_name netbox.air-band.net;  
    return 301 https://$host$request_uri;
}
5 Likes
7

Fixed, thank you so much Mike that was bang on the money!!!

Legend!!

3 Likes
8

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