Not being able to create a certificate for my mail domain name

[stefanstranger]

This time I also wanted to create a SSL certificate for the mail domain but when I add my mail domain to the certbot commandline tool it fails with below error.

When looking at my DNS settings I see an A-record with the same IP address as my www domain name.

My domain is:
stranger.nl

I ran this command:
letsencrypt certonly -d stranger.nl,www.stranger.nl,mail.stranger.nl --manual

It produced this output:
Cleaning up challenges
Failed authorization procedure. mail.stranger.nl (http-01): urn:ietf:params:acme:error:unauthorized :: The client lacks sufficient authorization :: Invalid response from http://mail.stranger.nl/.well-known/acme-challenge/[secret] [149.210.128.181]: "\n\n404 Not Found\n\n

Not Found

\n<p"

IMPORTANT NOTES:

• The following errors were reported by the server:

  Domain: mail.stranger.nl
  Type: unauthorized
  Detail: Invalid response from
  http://mail.stranger.nl/.well-known/acme-challenge/[secret]
  [149.210.128.181]: "\n\n404 Not
  Found\n\n

  Not Found

  \n<p"

  To fix these errors, please make sure that your domain name was
  entered correctly and the DNS A/AAAA record(s) for that domain
  contain(s) the right IP address.
  My web server is (include version):
  Apache 2.4.25
  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):
No
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):
0.31.0

[Osiris]

Two things:

1. Is there a specific reason you're using the --manual plugin? This is not recommended, as it's not easily automatable.
2. What's your Apache configuration with regard to the mail.stranger.nl subdomain?

[rg305]

Hi @stefanstranger and welcome to the LE community forum

I agree with @Osiris, there is a functional Apache web server that can be used to obtain cert(s) for those names. There is really no need for doing anything manually.