# How to manually enter certificate key into certbot?

**URL:** <https://community.letsencrypt.org/t/how-to-manually-enter-certificate-key-into-certbot/170256>\
**Category:** Help\
**Created:** [January 23, 2022, 8:37am UTC](https://community.letsencrypt.org/t/how-to-manually-enter-certificate-key-into-certbot/170256 "2022-01-23T08:37:13Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 5\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![uaysk0327](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/48db29/32.png) [@uaysk0327](https://community.letsencrypt.org/u/uaysk0327)\
**Post date:** [January 23, 2022, 8:37am UTC](https://community.letsencrypt.org/t/how-to-manually-enter-certificate-key-into-certbot/170256/1 "2022-01-23T08:37:13Z")

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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](https://crt.sh/?q=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:uaysk.com

I ran this command:certbot

It produced this output:

My web server is (include version):apache2

The operating system my web server runs on is (include version):ubuntu 20

My hosting provider, if applicable, is:

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 0.40.0

Can I enter the certificate key I received through the WordPress plugin directly through certbot?

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**Author:** ![Osiris](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/839c29/32.png) [@Osiris](https://community.letsencrypt.org/u/Osiris)\
**Post date:** [January 23, 2022, 10:06am UTC](https://community.letsencrypt.org/t/how-to-manually-enter-certificate-key-into-certbot/170256/2 "2022-01-23T10:06:50Z")

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I think there are some elaborate options where you manually generate a CSR and use that with Certbot, but I would not recommend it.

You say you have root access to your host. Why would you undertake an elaborate process of manually feeding a private key to Certbot? Can't the plugin handle everything itself? Which plugin are we talking about anyway?

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**Author:** ![orangepizza](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/letsencrypt/user_avatar/community.letsencrypt.org/orangepizza/32/19597_2.png) [@orangepizza](https://community.letsencrypt.org/u/orangepizza)\
**Post date:** [January 23, 2022, 10:22am UTC](https://community.letsencrypt.org/t/how-to-manually-enter-certificate-key-into-certbot/170256/3 "2022-01-23T10:22:02Z")

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I guess some kind of key pinning?

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**Author:** ![rg305](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/letsencrypt/user_avatar/community.letsencrypt.org/rg305/32/91314_2.png) [@rg305](https://community.letsencrypt.org/u/rg305)\
**Post date:** [January 23, 2022, 7:28pm UTC](https://community.letsencrypt.org/t/how-to-manually-enter-certificate-key-into-certbot/170256/4 "2022-01-23T19:28:58Z")

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You could manually replace the key `certbot` has and then reissue a cert without replacing the _current_ key.

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**Author:** ![system](https://global.discourse-cdn.com/letsencrypt/original/3X/c/a/ca6c06ea1ea201324bba7048c6841ce60236468d.png) [@system](https://community.letsencrypt.org/u/system)\
**Post date:** [February 22, 2022, 7:29pm UTC](https://community.letsencrypt.org/t/how-to-manually-enter-certificate-key-into-certbot/170256/5 "2022-02-22T19:29:00Z")

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