# Certbot without snapd

**URL:** <https://community.letsencrypt.org/t/certbot-without-snapd/146340>\
**Category:** Help\
**Created:** [February 28, 2021, 10:18am UTC](https://community.letsencrypt.org/t/certbot-without-snapd/146340 "2021-02-28T10:18:49Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 5\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![heldergg](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/73ab20/32.png) [@heldergg](https://community.letsencrypt.org/u/heldergg)\
**Post date:** [February 28, 2021, 10:18am UTC](https://community.letsencrypt.org/t/certbot-without-snapd/146340/1 "2021-02-28T10:18:49Z")

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I had a terrible time updating Debian 9 to Debian 10. The system would enter in emergency mode while booting giving very little information about what was going on. Eventually I removed "snapd" and was able to boot the system.

I didn't like the idea of having snapd on a server and this cemented my subjective opinion about it.

In order to have certbot again I did the following:

```
cd <some dir>
python3 -m venv certbot
source certbot/bin/activate
pip3 install --upgrade pip
pip3 install certbot-apache

```

And then just use:

```
<some dir>/bin/pip3 install --quiet --upgrade pip certbot-apache
<some dir>/bin/certbot renew

```

To renew my certs.

Question: is this a secure and stable way of having certbot installed? - I know it's not the recommended way. - Are there any downsides?

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**Author:** ![\_az](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/_/22d042/32.png) [@\_az](https://community.letsencrypt.org/u/_az)\
**Post date:** [February 28, 2021, 10:26am UTC](https://community.letsencrypt.org/t/certbot-without-snapd/146340/2 "2021-02-28T10:26:26Z")

</div>

The Certbot team will soon be publishing instructions on how to install Certbot using `pip`, which will be supported on a "best effort" basis for those who cannot use snaps for whatever reason. You can follow along the progress [here](https://github.com/certbot/website/pull/698).

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![heldergg](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/73ab20/32.png) [@heldergg](https://community.letsencrypt.org/u/heldergg)\
**Post date:** [February 28, 2021, 4:19pm UTC](https://community.letsencrypt.org/t/certbot-without-snapd/146340/3 "2021-02-28T16:19:05Z")

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It's very nice to have these instructions. Thank you.

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![heldergg](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/73ab20/32.png) [@heldergg](https://community.letsencrypt.org/u/heldergg)\
**Post date:** [March 8, 2021, 4:49pm UTC](https://community.letsencrypt.org/t/certbot-without-snapd/146340/4 "2021-03-08T16:49:40Z")

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The instructions are online! For example: [Apache + pip](https://certbot.eff.org/lets-encrypt/pip-apache).

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**Author:** ![system](https://global.discourse-cdn.com/letsencrypt/original/3X/c/a/ca6c06ea1ea201324bba7048c6841ce60236468d.png) [@system](https://community.letsencrypt.org/u/system)\
**Post date:** [April 7, 2021, 4:50pm UTC](https://community.letsencrypt.org/t/certbot-without-snapd/146340/5 "2021-04-07T16:50:13Z")

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