I am on nginx web server.
certbot --nginx -d domain_name
I'd do just this when port 80 used to be open. But a client doesn't know how to open port 80. So, I need alternatives.
Hello @test2, welcome to the Let's Encrypt community. 
Here are the Challenge Types - Let's Encrypt, the DNS-01 challenge does not need access to Port 80;
also it allows for issue certificates containing wildcard domain names.
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:
I ran this command:
It produced this output:
My web server is (include version):
The operating system my web server runs on is (include version):
My hosting provider, if applicable, is:
I can login to a root shell on my machine (yes or no, or I don't know):
I'm using a control panel to manage my site (no, or provide the name and version of the control panel):
The version of my client is (e.g. output of certbot --version or certbot-auto --version if you're using Certbot):
Thank you for assisting us in helping YOU!
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In addition to the DNS Challenge Bruce mentions ...
Could the client front their nginx with something like caddy that supports TLS-ALPN which uses port 443
If client uses Apache it has mod_md which also supports TLS_ALPN
Maybe use Cloudflare and its Origin CA Cert. Cloudflare CDN handles the HTTPS and certs for you and use its Origin CA Cert for your origin server.
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Would you mind providing how do I do dns-01 challenge in nginx? A link would be good as well.
You can't.
nginx is a web server - that can only serve HTTP/HTTPS request.
DNS servers serve DNS requests.
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