Detail: DNS problem: SERVFAIL looking up A for example.com - the domain's nameservers may be malfunctioning; no valid AAAA records found for example.com

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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: clearcreek.io

I ran this command: sudo certbot certonly --standalone --preferred-challenges http -d clearcreek.io

It produced this output:

Certbot failed to authenticate some domains (authenticator: standalone). The Certificate Authority reported these problems:
Domain: clearcreek.io
Type: dns
Detail: DNS problem: SERVFAIL looking up A for clearcreek.io - the domain's nameservers may be malfunctioning; no valid AAAA records found for clearcreek.io

Hint: The Certificate Authority failed to download the challenge files from the temporary standalone webserver started by Certbot on port 80. Ensure that the listed domains point to this machine and that it can accept inbound connections from the internet.

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

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

Ubuntu via WSL2 Distro on Windows 10, made possible by powershell script that allows TCP on ports 80 and 443 and creates a v4 to v4 port proxy.

My hosting provider, if applicable, is: NameCheap

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 1.29.0

Hi,

I see others have tried and failed with this. I do have a validated certificate via NameCheap for clearcreek.io (when my servier is turned on), and all functions well. I cannot do the same with certbot.

Possible reasons:

  • Must use python or apt to install certbot on this distro; snap will not work as systemd is not included in WSL2 Ubuntu Distros. I have tried both and getting the same error.

*Port forwarding is occurring through my windows 10 PC to the WSL2 instance. I have fixed my PC IP address to be static, and use a script to forward traffic to the WSL2 Ubuntu instance. TCP is allowed in both directions through ports 80 and 443, netsh interface port proxy add v4 to v4 is implemented. But this is working fine with my certificate.

I have also included: location ~ /.well-known {allow all;} on my server block.

I can send along the /var/log/letsencrypt/ log results if helpful, but there are keys etc inside. Please advise.

Thank you!

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Hello @tmmcde01, welcome to the Let's Encrypt community. :slightly_smiling_face:

SSL Labs is showing you are using a Private IP Address and thus not routable to the Internet (only your local network). This is a DNS issue of mapping your hosts to a routable Internet IP Address.

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As mentioned, private IPs can't be used when using HTTP authentication.

But more importantly: Such IPs can't be reached by anyone on the Internet.
If your "end game" is to serve the Internet, then you need to begin at the beginning of that and ensure you have a working HTTP site before trying to secure it.

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Hi, thanks so much! Funny thing is I have a certificate from Namecheap AND am serving content securely to the internet with a valid certificate. Take a look at clearcreek.io.

So, I think I can re-dedicate a different IP to my windows PC (fingers crossed), but unless you're sure that will prevent certificate issuance on your end (by say blocklisting private IP addresses) that may not be the issue.

Thoughts? (And thanks again for the help)

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It times out on trying to open that web site with Chrome for me.

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Hey thanks for the response -- take a look below please?

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Still won't connect for me.

$ ping clearcreek.io
ping: no address associated with name
$ ping www.clearcreek.io
ping: no address associated with name
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This is interesting . . .I can access it from my phone, work computer, etc. But all are on the same wifi network. I wonder if my ISP has something to do with this -- like everything is behaving like a LAN even though it's not.

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Try disabling Wi-Fi on your cellphone so you are using your cellular carrier as the IP provider on your cellphone.

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So I'm going to re-dedicate my Windows IP address and take another shot. Thank you!

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(Disabling phone wi-fi was the testing I needed -- thank you!)

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What is its present IP address?

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192.168.0.44

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We did:

Name:    clearcreek.io
Address:  192.168.0.44

That IP is only accessible from your internal network [and WiFi].
RFC 1918 makes that network usable only to private networks - NOT routable over the Internet.

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Wifi is the thing . . . thanks for that.

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If you have a private IP address set in the DNS of your domain name, then only people from inside that private address space can connect to the server.

If you want to have your site publicly available, you need to use a public IP address in the DNS settings of your website.

Note that NameCheap could have used the dns-01 challenge type if it's also your DNS service provider. This would mean it didn't need a working website, but used the DNS servers of your domain.

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And that's exactly what NameCheap did. You guys are awesome -- thank you!

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