# Host multiple domains with a single certificate
**URL:** https://community.letsencrypt.org/t/host-multiple-domains-with-a-single-certificate/20917
**Category:** Help
**Created:** [October 10, 2016, 9:27pm UTC](https://community.letsencrypt.org/t/host-multiple-domains-with-a-single-certificate/20917 "2016-10-10T21:27:19Z")
**Posts on this page:** 10
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@jgatkins2002](https://community.letsencrypt.org/u/jgatkins2002)
#### Post date: [October 10, 2016, 9:27pm UTC](https://community.letsencrypt.org/t/host-multiple-domains-with-a-single-certificate/20917/1 "2016-10-10T21:27:19Z")
Hello,
I ran into this article that offers a possible workaround to host multiple sites without a wildcard. Can anyone advise if this functionality still exists with certbot-auto? Is there a way I can install ‘letsencrypt’ to achieve this?
Thanks!
> **[Not cheap.. but the cheapest wildcard SSL cert. • r/homelab](https://www.reddit.com/r/homelab/comments/46n90d/not_cheap_but_the_cheapest_wildcard_ssl_cert/)**
>
> Hi HomeLab, Im looking for the cheapest wildcard cert I can find for my homelab. Everything I can find is around $65.
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### Author:  [@schoen](https://community.letsencrypt.org/u/schoen)
#### Post date: [October 10, 2016, 9:34pm UTC](https://community.letsencrypt.org/t/host-multiple-domains-with-a-single-certificate/20917/2 "2016-10-10T21:34:28Z")
Hi @jgatkins2002,
`certbot` is the new name for `letsencrypt` and it’s still possible to get a certificate covering multiple domains.
If you know at the outset what domains you want to be included in the certificate, it’s not necessary to edit any configuration files. Instead, you can specify the domains on the command line when you first run `certbot`. For example, you might run something like
`certbot-auto -d one.example.com -d two.example.com -d three.example.com -d example.org`
This will request a certificate covering all of those names. When renewing the certificate with `certbot-auto renew`, it will be replaced with a new certificate that still covers all of the names.
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### Author:  [@jgatkins2002](https://community.letsencrypt.org/u/jgatkins2002)
#### Post date: [October 10, 2016, 9:50pm UTC](https://community.letsencrypt.org/t/host-multiple-domains-with-a-single-certificate/20917/3 "2016-10-10T21:50:40Z")
THANK YOU so much!
One more minor question… I have previously requested certs for the sites individually. What should I do to ensure that I can smoothly request updated certs? Do I need to individually revoke each one before requesting this umbrella cert? I really do appreciate your help and patience! I am a newbie to some of this.
Thank you~
Jackie
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### Author:  [@schoen](https://community.letsencrypt.org/u/schoen)
#### Post date: [October 10, 2016, 9:55pm UTC](https://community.letsencrypt.org/t/host-multiple-domains-with-a-single-certificate/20917/4 "2016-10-10T21:55:59Z")
There’s no requirement to revoke the earlier certificates; if you’d like, you can just allow them to expire.
You might want to double check the rate limits at
[https://letsencrypt.org/docs/rate-limits/](https://letsencrypt.org/docs/rate-limits/)
to see if there are any that you would be in danger of hitting in your situation. (Revoking old certificates _does not_ reset or affect the Let’s Encrypt rate limits.)
Assuming you’re not going to hit any rate limits by doing so, you can just issue a new certificate that covers all of your domains. The biggest problem that I see is simply that it may be confusing to have the old certificates and the new certificates around at the same time. In a future version of Certbot, there will be a “certificate manager” to help deal with situations like this, but it’s not done yet!
If you can delete the existing certificates without breaking your web server, you might want to do that. The safest approach might be something like `sudo mv /etc/letsencrypt /etc/letsencrypt.old` so that you have a backup of your old certificates and keys, but they are no longer actively used by Certbot. However, that might cause problems with your web server configuration if the server is currently set up to use your existing Let’s Encrypt certificates.
I’m sorry for the limitations in existing versions of Certbot that can make this kind of situation a bit confusing.
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### Author:  [@jgatkins2002](https://community.letsencrypt.org/u/jgatkins2002)
#### Post date: [October 10, 2016, 10:02pm UTC](https://community.letsencrypt.org/t/host-multiple-domains-with-a-single-certificate/20917/5 "2016-10-10T22:02:00Z")
You are MOST helpful and I cannot tell you how much I appreciate it.
I am a but confused about what could break, however. Would you mind providing feedback on the approach I am planning to take? I was thinking I could just delete all of the old certs and update all of my sites-available/\*conf files to utilize the updated certs. I am not really sure what else I would need to change/anticipate. Also, will this method allow me to issue the ‘certonly’ option so that I can manually update all of the conf files?
I am so sorry for so many questions. This has become a high priority and I am just trying to make sure that I understand in order to avoid issues.
THANK YOU!
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### Author:  [@schoen](https://community.letsencrypt.org/u/schoen)
#### Post date: [October 10, 2016, 11:15pm UTC](https://community.letsencrypt.org/t/host-multiple-domains-with-a-single-certificate/20917/6 "2016-10-10T23:15:11Z")
Are you using Apache? Were you using the Apache installer before to automatically update your Apache configurations?
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### Author:  [@jgatkins2002](https://community.letsencrypt.org/u/jgatkins2002)
#### Post date: [October 11, 2016, 1:06am UTC](https://community.letsencrypt.org/t/host-multiple-domains-with-a-single-certificate/20917/7 "2016-10-11T01:06:45Z")
Hello,
I am using apache. I used the ‘certonly’ option and updated my configs
manually.
Thanks!
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### Author:  [@jgatkins2002](https://community.letsencrypt.org/u/jgatkins2002)
#### Post date: [October 11, 2016, 2:52pm UTC](https://community.letsencrypt.org/t/host-multiple-domains-with-a-single-certificate/20917/8 "2016-10-11T14:52:34Z")
Hello again!
I think this might be the solution that I need. The only problem is, when I created the inclusive cert, it named it using one of the subdomains. Can I somehow get the cert named something other than one of the the subdomains? This is an issue because it will be very confusing in our present setup.
THANKS!!!
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### Author:  [@schoen](https://community.letsencrypt.org/u/schoen)
#### Post date: [October 11, 2016, 11:23pm UTC](https://community.letsencrypt.org/t/host-multiple-domains-with-a-single-certificate/20917/9 "2016-10-11T23:23:11Z")
@jgatkins2002, do you mean “named it” in terms of what you see what you view it in the browser, or “named it” in terms of what it’s called within `/etc/letsencrypt`?
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### Author:  [@system](https://community.letsencrypt.org/u/system)
#### Post date: [November 10, 2016, 11:33pm UTC](https://community.letsencrypt.org/t/host-multiple-domains-with-a-single-certificate/20917/10 "2016-11-10T23:33:41Z")
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