# How to re-use an existing account key?

**URL:** <https://community.letsencrypt.org/t/how-to-re-use-an-existing-account-key/46672>\
**Category:** Help\
**Created:** [November 20, 2017, 11:13am UTC](https://community.letsencrypt.org/t/how-to-re-use-an-existing-account-key/46672 "2017-11-20T11:13:10Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 5\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![stschindler](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/67e7ee/32.png) [@stschindler](https://community.letsencrypt.org/u/stschindler)\
**Post date:** [November 20, 2017, 11:13am UTC](https://community.letsencrypt.org/t/how-to-re-use-an-existing-account-key/46672/1 "2017-11-20T11:13:10Z")

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How can an existing account key be reused for `certbot certonly` at another setup? All I can see is the account itself under `/etc/letsencrypt/accounts/`, but how can I use that account on another machine/setup? Do I simply copy the contents over? Can I explicitely select an account?

I’m currently rate-limited due to too many account registrations from one IP in a containerized environment and would therefore like to re-use an existing account key to prevent further downtime.

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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:** [November 20, 2017, 1:59pm UTC](https://community.letsencrypt.org/t/how-to-re-use-an-existing-account-key/46672/2 "2017-11-20T13:59:17Z")

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Your question, and lead in, should be based around:

> [@stschindler](#):
>
> too many account registrations from one IP

not your proposed solution to that problem:

> [@stschindler](#):
>
> How can an existing account key be reused...

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**Author:** ![schoen](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/letsencrypt/user_avatar/community.letsencrypt.org/schoen/32/79_2.png) [@schoen](https://community.letsencrypt.org/u/schoen)\
**Post date:** [November 20, 2017, 5:12pm UTC](https://community.letsencrypt.org/t/how-to-re-use-an-existing-account-key/46672/3 "2017-11-20T17:12:47Z")

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> [@stschindler](#):
>
> How can an existing account key be reused for certbot certonly at another setup? All I can see is the account itself under /etc/letsencrypt/accounts/, but how can I use that account on another machine/setup? Do I simply copy the contents over? Can I explicitely select an account?

Hi @stschindler,

If you copy `/etc/letsencrypt/accounts`, Certbot should be able to reuse the account key. Please make sure you're aware of the other rate limits too:

> **[Rate Limits - Let's Encrypt](https://letsencrypt.org/docs/rate-limits/)**
>
> Let’s Encrypt provides rate limits to ensure fair usage by as many people as possible. We believe these rate limits are high enough to work for most people by default. We’ve also designed them so renewing a certificate almost never hits a...

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**Author:** ![stschindler](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/67e7ee/32.png) [@stschindler](https://community.letsencrypt.org/u/stschindler)\
**Post date:** [November 21, 2017, 7:06am UTC](https://community.letsencrypt.org/t/how-to-re-use-an-existing-account-key/46672/4 "2017-11-21T07:06:19Z")

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> [@rg305](#):
>
> Your question, and lead in, should be based around:  
> too many account registrations from one IP

I moved a web app from one node to another node. Things didn't work as expected, so the proxy container had to do more requests to LE than expected. The old certificates weren't transferred. I was well aware of the failure request limit, but not the account IP registration limit.

Although I understand that there's a rate limit, I find 3 hours to be too long. We ended up purchasing an SSL certificate to solve the issue quickly. Before we did it, I hoped to be able to fetch a new certificate when I reuse an account key from another node, and that's why my question was indeed about that.

> [@schoen](#):
>
> If you copy /etc/letsencrypt/accounts, Certbot should be able to reuse the account key.

Thank you, I will try that. Do you know what happens when there are multiple account keys present? I didn't find a way for specifying which one to use.

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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:** [December 21, 2017, 7:14am UTC](https://community.letsencrypt.org/t/how-to-re-use-an-existing-account-key/46672/5 "2017-12-21T07:14:06Z")

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