Certbot Renew Fails 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

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1

sudo certbot renew --cert-name "x.xxxxxxxx.com" --force-renew -v
Saving debug log to /var/log/letsencrypt/letsencrypt.log

Processing /etc/letsencrypt/renewal/x.xxxxxxxx.com.conf

Plugins selected: Authenticator apache, Installer apache
Renewing an existing certificate for x.xxxxxxxx.com
Performing the following challenges:
http-01 challenge for x.xxxxxxxx.com
Waiting for verification...
Challenge failed for domain x.xxxxxxxx.com
http-01 challenge for x.xxxxxxxx.com

Certbot failed to authenticate some domains (authenticator: apache). The Certificate Authority reported these problems:
Domain: x.xxxxxxxx.com
Type: connection
Detail: During secondary validation: 10x.xxx.xxx.xxx: Fetching http://x.xxxxxxxx.com/.well-known/acme-challenge/VNWWWO2m9ynF0_sJ0Hf5zFIYDX614t4gxyuUfw2CErA: Timeout during connect (likely firewall problem)

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
Failed to renew certificate x.xxxxxxxx.com with error: Some challenges have failed.

All renewals failed. The following certificates could not be renewed:
/etc/letsencrypt/live/x.xxxxxxxx.com/fullchain.pem (failure)

1 renew failure(s), 0 parse failure(s)

It has been automatically renewed for the past 3 years. Suddenly this time it did not and manual renew is also not working.
"certbot renew" threw the same error. So tried force renew. It didnt work too.

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Your thread is more suitable for the Help section instead of the Issuance Tech category.

If you would have opened this thread in the Help section, you would have been provided with a questionnaire. Please fill out the questionnaire below to the best of your knowledge:

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. https://crt.sh/?q=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:

I ran this command:

It produced this output:

My web server is (include version):

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

My hosting provider, if applicable, is:

I can login to a root shell on my machine (yes or no, or I don't know):

I'm using a control panel to manage my site (no, or provide the name and version of the control panel):

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

That said, the error message with regard to the timeout during connect usually means there's a firewall blocking access to port 80. While HTTPS works using port 443, the http-01 challenge which is being used here uses port 80. See also: Best Practice - Keep Port 80 Open - Let's Encrypt.

Also, please do NOT use the --force-renew option if you don't know what it means. It does NOT "magically" make a failing challenge succeed. That would defeat the purpose of the challenge if it could be overridden by a simple client side option :roll_eyes:

1 Like
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[quote="Osiris, post:2, topic:216784"]
My domain is:

vss1.voicesnapforschools.com

I ran this command:

sudo certbot renew --cert-name "vss1.voicesnapforschools.com"

It produced this output:

Saving debug log to /var/log/letsencrypt/letsencrypt.log

Processing /etc/letsencrypt/renewal/vss1.voicesnapforschools.com.conf

Renewing an existing certificate for vss1.voicesnapforschools.com

Certbot failed to authenticate some domains (authenticator: apache). The Certificate Authority reported these problems:
Domain: vss1.voicesnapforschools.com
Type: connection
Detail: During secondary validation: 10xx.xxx.xxx.xx4: Fetching http://vss1.voicesnapforschools.com/.well-known/acme-challenge/peTqoEnI4ekHgg-A2omLiNkA2JTcTzVLp8cZd_yaz74: Timeout during connect (likely firewall problem)

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.

Failed to renew certificate vss1.voicesnapforschools.com with error: Some challenges have failed.

All renewals failed. The following certificates could not be renewed:
/etc/letsencrypt/live/vss1.voicesnapforschools.com/fullchain.pem (failure)

1 renew failure(s), 0 parse failure(s)
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):

Server version: Apache/2.4.6 (CentOS)
Server built: Mar 24 2022 14:57:57

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

NAME="CentOS Linux"
VERSION="7 (Core)"

My hosting provider, if applicable, is: godaddy.com

I can login to a root shell on my machine: yes

I'm using a control panel to manage my site: no

The version of my client is certbot 2.10.0

4

vss1.voicesnapforschools.com seems to be completely down. HTTP access to port 80 is required as I already mentioned earlier.

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5

Do you have a geographic based firewall? There was a recent change that added two non USA validation centers one of which at least must succeed to satisfy the challenge and issue a Certificate.

I am able to reach your domain using HTTP from some locations and the error message said a secondary validation failed which indicates a possible geographic based firewall.

3 Likes
6

Yes, we do have a geographic firewall which allows only India and USA.
What are the two non USA centre locations ?

7

The locations can change at any time. You need open access to port 80, at least while you are performing the HTTP-01 challenge. If that is not possible, you may want to consider switching to the DNS-01 challenge, as long as you aren't geoblocking DNS, too.

3 Likes
8

This has come up frequently since the recent addition of two remote validation centers. As one example, see this post to two comments by LE Staff. One describes the new countries and they both caution these may change at any time

3 Likes
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