Error when trying to renew cert

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1

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My domain is: pcasupportgroup.org

I ran this command: Renew certificate button from wordpress plugin

It produced this output: Error ‘Missing private key’

My web server is (include version): apache 2.4.7

The operating system my web server runs on is (include version): Ubuntu - actually using Bitnami WP machine from AWS catalog

My hosting provider, if applicable, is: AWS

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 control panel

2

Hi,

Can you please share us the name of the plugin you refer to ?(the one you used?)

Thank you

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Wordpress plugin
WP Encrypt Version 1.0.0-beta.8 | By Felix Arntz

4

You might know that WP Encrypt is no longer being developed.

https://wordpress.org/support/plugin/wp-encrypt

You could try asking for help on the WP Encrypt support forum but it seems like a better bet is to switch to some other method of obtaining certificates. (I don’t know if there’s an alternative WordPress plugin that’s been developed as a kind of successor to WP Encrypt.)

5

Thanks - although I have the plugin, I also have ssh access to my machine - and when I try ‘sudo certbot renew’ I get a ‘no renewals attempted’. My certs need to be renewed in a few days so I need help to get them renewed please.

6

What’s the output of certbot certificates?

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Command returns ‘no certs found’, but I see that the cert .pem files are in /opt/bitnami/apps/wordpress/letsencrypt/live/pcasupportgroup.org directory

8

@pca.group.adm, did you run Certbot before to cause these certs to be created, or were they a result of WP Encrypt or something?

@jmorahan, do you remember how this works, by any chance?

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I don't really know anything about WP Encrypt, but it doesn't seem to use Certbot as far as I can tell. Its README says:

the directory that will contain the keys and certificates; by default this will be ../letsencrypt

so I guess that's where they came from.

You can of course just get rid of the plugin and use Certbot or another client to get a new certificate as if starting from scratch. If you use Certbot I'd suggest using the --webroot plugin for minimum hassle with Bitnami; remember to update your Apache configuration to point to where Certbot stores things (in /etc/letsencrypt/live/), and add a --deploy-hook to reload Apache via Bitnami's control script.

certbot certonly --webroot -w /opt/bitnami/apps/wordpress/htdocs -d pcasupportgroup.org -d www.pcasupportgroup.org --deploy-hook '/opt/bitnami/ctlscript.sh apache reload'

or something along those lines, if I remember correctly.

10

Thanks schoen and jmorahan

I agree, it is best to clean things up and set up new certs.
I uninstalled the WP Encrypt plugin from wordpress (since that is no longer supported)
I generated new letsencrypt certs and lego client using the following instructions:
https://docs.bitnami.com/aws/how-to/generate-install-lets-encrypt-ssl/
I removed the certbot client, since I am using the lego client now

Site now has the newly generated certs, and a cron entry to renew

Thanks for your prompt response and assistance.

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