Http Challenge Fails

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1

I have been troubleshooting this for weeks. I have scoured the internet to no avail. I am trying to do a HTTP-01 cert. Any assistance would be MUCH appretiated. Cheers!

My domain is: analoglife.net

I ran this command: certbot --nginx -d analoglife.net --test-cert -v

It produced this output:

Saving debug log to /var/log/letsencrypt/letsencrypt.log
Plugins selected: Authenticator nginx, Installer nginx
Requesting a certificate for analoglife.net
Performing the following challenges:
http-01 challenge for analoglife.net
Waiting for verification...
Challenge failed for domain analoglife.net
http-01 challenge for analoglife.net

Certbot failed to authenticate some domains (authenticator: nginx). The Certificate Authority reported these problems:
Domain: analoglife.net
Type: connection
Detail: During secondary validation: 50.20.124.127: Fetching http://analoglife.net/.well-known/acme-challenge/2ucWK6f4LFfxiKAf5lvi1kPPbQNJmF8f_DQtMdIPTjA: Timeout during connect (likely firewall problem)

Hint: The Certificate Authority failed to verify the temporary nginx configuration changes made by Certbot. Ensure the listed domains point to this nginx server and that it is accessible from the internet.

Cleaning up challenges
Some challenges have failed.
Ask for help or search for solutions at https://community.letsencrypt.org. See the logfile /var/log/letsencrypt/letsencrypt.log or re-run Certbot with -v for more details.

My web server is (include version):

HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Server: nginx/1.22.1
Date: Sat, 02 Aug 2025 03:31:20 GMT
Content-Type: text/html
Content-Length: 173
Last-Modified: Sat, 19 Jul 2025 21:26:27 GMT
Connection: keep-alive
ETag: "687c0d83-ad"
Accept-Ranges: bytes

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

PRETTY_NAME="Debian GNU/Linux 12 (bookworm)"
NAME="Debian GNU/Linux"
VERSION_ID="12"
VERSION="12 (bookworm)"
VERSION_CODENAME=bookworm
ID=debian
HOME_URL="https://www.debian.org/"
SUPPORT_URL="Debian -- User Support"
BUG_REPORT_URL="https://bugs.debian.org/"

My hosting provider, if applicable, is: N/A

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 4.1.1

1 Like
2

Well, you've finally come to the right place.

Proving you control your domain using an HTTP challenge response requires that your server can talk HTTP and that means allowing incoming traffic on TCP port 80 and being able to answer the certificate authority (Let's Encrypt) when they check your site.

Currently, your site does not respond to TCP port 80 connections which suggests a few possibilities:

  • nothing is listening (nginx not running or doesn't have a port 80 listen directive setup).
  • or you are blocking those request with a firewall, either at the port level or based on IP (geo blocking etc)
  • or your router is not forwarding the requests to the correct server on your network.

I would start by getting your site to work with normal old-fashioned HTTP (not HTTPS), and that should get the ball rolling.

2 Likes
3

I can browse to the site and get a basic html response. Am I not communicating TCP on port 80?

4

Only for the United States: Check website performance and response : Check host - online website monitoring

Let's Encrypt tries connecting from multiple vantage points around the world. Consult this FAQ:

5 Likes
5

Nekit - You are a life saver!!! It was a firewall rule that was blocking all non-USA connections. I adjust the firewall and it is working. Thanks for the help!!

4 Likes
6

You can keep the geo-blocking on port 443 if you want. It won't interfere with your HTTP-01 ACME challenge as long as port 80 doesn't have those restrictions.

2 Likes