Error while getting certificate with nginx

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1

My domain is: max-server.org

I ran this command: certbot --nginx

It produced this output: Could not automatically find a matching server block for max-server.org. Set the server_name directive to use the Nginx installer.

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

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

My hosting provider, if applicable, is: my own Server / Domain: Strato

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 1.21.0

certbot.errors.MisconfigurationError: Could not automatically find a matching server block for max-server.org. Set the server_name directive to use the Nginx installer.

2025-05-08 02:22:27,798:DEBUG:certbot._internal.error_handler:Calling registered functions
2025-05-08 02:22:27,859:DEBUG:certbot._internal.display.obj:Notifying user: Could not install certificate
2025-05-08 02:22:27,859:DEBUG:certbot._internal.display.obj:Notifying user: NEXT STEPS:
2025-05-08 02:22:27,860:DEBUG:certbot._internal.display.obj:Notifying user: - The certificate was saved, but could not be installed (installer: nginx). After fixing the error shown below, try installing it again by running:
certbot install --cert-name max-server.org
2025-05-08 02:22:27,860:DEBUG:certbot._internal.log:Exiting abnormally:
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "/usr/bin/certbot", line 33, in
sys.exit(load_entry_point('certbot==1.21.0', 'console_scripts', 'certbot')())
File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/certbot/main.py", line 15, in main
return internal_main.main(cli_args)
File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/certbot/_internal/main.py", line 1574, in main
return config.func(config, plugins)
File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/certbot/_internal/main.py", line 1317, in run
raise installer_err
File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/certbot/_internal/main.py", line 1301, in run
_install_cert(config, le_client, domains, new_lineage)
File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/certbot/_internal/main.py", line 929, in _install_cert
le_client.deploy_certificate(domains, path_provider.key_path, path_provider.cert_path,
File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/certbot/_internal/client.py", line 556, in deploy_certificate
self.installer.deploy_cert(
File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/certbot_nginx/_internal/configurator.py", line 232, in deploy_cert
vhosts = self.choose_vhosts(domain, create_if_no_match=True)
File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/certbot_nginx/_internal/configurator.py", line 339, in choose_vhosts
vhosts = [self._vhost_from_duplicated_default(target_name, True,
File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/certbot_nginx/_internal/configurator.py", line 391, in _vhost_from_duplicated_default
default_vhost = self._get_default_vhost(domain, allow_port_mismatch, port)
File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/certbot_nginx/_internal/configurator.py", line 428, in _get_default_vhost
raise errors.MisconfigurationError("Could not automatically find a matching server"
certbot.errors.MisconfigurationError: Could not automatically find a matching server block for max-server.org. Set the server_name directive to use the Nginx installer.
2025-05-08 02:22:27,861:ERROR:certbot._internal.log:Could not automatically find a matching server block for max-server.org. Set the server_name directive to use the Nginx installer.

2

let's see how your nginx configed.
nginx -T (capital T) and post result please?

2 Likes
3

root@ml-linux:/etc/nginx# nginx -T
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;
#user  nobody;
#Defines which Linux system user will own and run the Nginx server

worker_processes  1;
#Referes to single threaded process. Generally set to be equal to the number of CPUs or cores.

#error_log  logs/error.log; #error_log  logs/error.log  notice;
#Specifies the file where server logs. 

#pid        logs/nginx.pid;
#nginx will write its master process ID(PID).

events {
    worker_connections  1024;
    # worker_processes and worker_connections allows you to calculate maxclients value: 
    # max_clients = worker_processes * worker_connections
}


http {
    include       mime.types;
    # anything written in /opt/nginx/conf/mime.types is interpreted as if written inside the http { } block

    default_type  application/octet-stream;
    #

    #log_format  main  '$remote_addr - $remote_user [$time_local] "$request" '
    #                  '$status $body_bytes_sent "$http_referer" '
    #                  '"$http_user_agent" "$http_x_forwarded_for"';

    #access_log  logs/access.log  main;

    sendfile        on;
    # If serving locally stored static files, sendfile is essential to speed up the server,
    # But if using as reverse proxy one can deactivate it
    
    #tcp_nopush     on;
    # works opposite to tcp_nodelay. Instead of optimizing delays, it optimizes the amount of data sent at once.

    #keepalive_timeout  0;
    keepalive_timeout  65;
    # timeout during which a keep-alive client connection will stay open.

    #gzip  on;
    # tells the server to use on-the-fly gzip compression.

    server {
        # You would want to make a separate file with its own server block for each virtual domain
        # on your server and then include them.
        listen       80;
        #tells Nginx the hostname and the TCP port where it should listen for HTTP connections.
        # listen 80; is equivalent to listen *:80;
        
        server_name  localhost;
        # lets you doname-based virtual hosting

        #charset koi8-r;
	}
}

# 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;
}
4

I’m doing this on my cellphone, but I don’t see a server_name for the domain name.

1 Like