In the past, the configuration file syntax could have changed. If there's an update in syntax which isn't compatible, the client needs to know about it.
As far as I know, your new configuration should work.
If I were you, I would just try it with the --dry-run switch: this will try to renew even if the cert is not even close to expiry, but with "staging" certificates. It will not change anything in the /live/ directory at all, just for testing.
The apache plugin would reload Apache by itself. With certonly, you're responsible for that. There are four options:
- Manually reloading your webserver after a
certbot-auto renew. Which obviously is quite stupid, b/c you'd want to runcertbot-auto renewautomatically from for example cron..
- Adding the reload command to the cronjob;
- Adding the switch
--renew-hook command_to_reload_your_webserver_goes_heretocertbot-auto renewór - Add the option
renew_hook = command_to_reload_your_webserver_goes_hereto your renewal configuration file.
(Do note the difference between the dash (-) on the command line in --renew-hook and the underscore (_) in the renew_hook option for the renewal configuration ;))
Hope this helps!