Port 80 in Use when trying to request certificate

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), so withholding your domain name here does not increase secrecy, but only makes it harder for us to provide help.

My domain is:
theminecraftgalaxy.com

I ran this command:
certbot certonly --standalone -d theminecraftgalaxy.com

It produced this output:
Saving debug log to /var/log/letsencrypt/letsencrypt.log
Requesting a certificate for theminecraftgalaxy.com


Could not bind TCP port 80 because it is already in use by another process on
this system (such as a web server). Please stop the program in question and then
try again.


(R)etry/(C)ancel: c
Could not bind TCP port 80 because it is already in use by another process on this system (such as a web server). Please stop the program in question and then try again.
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):
I'm using standalone (not nginx or apache)

The operating system my web server runs on is (include version):
ubuntu 20.4

My hosting provider, if applicable, is:
Local Machine

I can login to a root shell on my machine (yes or no, or I don't know):
I don't know.

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 1.21.0

Something must be already using port 80. The --standalone option requires exclusive use of that port. So, either stop that other service first. Or, often that is a web server which can be used with --webroot or even --nginx or --apache

More importantly, you do not have a A and/or AAAA record in your DNS to point to your public IP. Even if standalone could bind to port 80 there is no way for the Let's Encrypt server to connect to your domain using HTTP without such record(s).

3 Likes

I cannot disable nginx. Is there a way I can use another port?

Can't you use the --nginx plugin instead of the --standalone plugin?

That still says I do not have my dns records but I do (see screenshot).

I covered the IP because this is a home server.

But those are just the node and panel subdomains, not theminecraftgalaxy.com itself.

By the way, hostnames such as node.theminecraftgalaxy.com resolve to that IP address. That's the entire purpose of DNS. So trying to hide the IP address from the screenshot doesn't make much sense.

2 Likes

Doesn't look like it maps to an IP Addresses
IPv4

>nmap -Pn -p80,443 theminecraftgalaxy.com
Starting Nmap 7.94 ( https://nmap.org ) at 2023-12-09 20:46 UTC
Failed to resolve "theminecraftgalaxy.com".
WARNING: No targets were specified, so 0 hosts scanned.
Nmap done: 0 IP addresses (0 hosts up) scanned in 0.61 seconds

and IPv6

>nmap -6 -Pn -p80,443 theminecraftgalaxy.com
Starting Nmap 7.94 ( https://nmap.org ) at 2023-12-09 20:46 UTC
Failed to resolve "theminecraftgalaxy.com".
WARNING: No targets were specified, so 0 hosts scanned.
Nmap done: 0 IP addresses (0 hosts up) scanned in 0.03 seconds
1 Like

1 Like

So what IP would I put in for my DNS records?

The publicly viewable IP Address(es) of your web server.

1 Like

The same as what you're currently using? (If that's the host where your webserver is running anyway.) The problem is the IP address is absent for theminecraftgalaxy.com.

2 Likes

Thanks this helped a lot but now I get a firewall error. Does anyone know how to troubleshoot this?

Saving debug log to /var/log/letsencrypt/letsencrypt.log
Requesting a certificate for panel.theminecraftgalaxy.com

Certbot failed to authenticate some domains (authenticator: nginx). The Certificate Authority reported these problems:
Domain: panel.theminecraftgalaxy.com
Type: connection
Detail: 73.128.9.131: Fetching http://panel.theminecraftgalaxy.com/.well-known/acme-challenge/JKYN52MzEwwbOzJ1IbSQJEz7dOIeGZRVWX8nDcnvunM: 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.

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.

1 Like

Read your firewall/router manual and reconfigure to allow Port 80 & 443 to be presented to the external public Internet; presently they are filtered.

$ nmap -Pn -p80,443 panel.theminecraftgalaxy.com
Starting Nmap 7.80 ( https://nmap.org ) at 2023-12-09 21:11 UTC
Nmap scan report for panel.theminecraftgalaxy.com (73.128.9.131)
Host is up.
rDNS record for 73.128.9.131: c-73-128-9-131.hsd1.md.comcast.net

PORT    STATE    SERVICE
80/tcp  filtered http
443/tcp filtered https

Nmap done: 1 IP address (1 host up) scanned in 3.13 seconds
1 Like

Using the online tool Let's Debug yields these results https://letsdebug.net/panel.theminecraftgalaxy.com/1730162

ANotWorking
ERROR
panel.theminecraftgalaxy.com has an A (IPv4) record (73.128.9.131) but a request to this address over port 80 did not succeed. Your web server must have at least one working IPv4 or IPv6 address.
A timeout was experienced while communicating with panel.theminecraftgalaxy.com/73.128.9.131: Get "http://panel.theminecraftgalaxy.com/.well-known/acme-challenge/letsdebug-test": dial tcp 73.128.9.131:80: i/o timeout

Trace:
@0ms: Making a request to http://panel.theminecraftgalaxy.com/.well-known/acme-challenge/letsdebug-test (using initial IP 73.128.9.131)
@0ms: Dialing 73.128.9.131
@10002ms: Experienced error: dial tcp 73.128.9.131:80: i/o timeout
IssueFromLetsEncrypt
ERROR
A test authorization for panel.theminecraftgalaxy.com to the Let's Encrypt staging service has revealed issues that may prevent any certificate for this domain being issued.
73.128.9.131: Fetching http://panel.theminecraftgalaxy.com/.well-known/acme-challenge/V3pLtJKyVwwFtddvjSVo8BtEvVuVRXZn63tZk3-KJI4: Timeout during connect (likely firewall problem)

Best Practice - Keep Port 80 Open

The HTTP-01 challenge of the Challenge Types - Let's Encrypt requires Port 80.
"The HTTP-01 challenge can only be done on port 80."

1 Like

Thanks! It works!

2 Likes

That is great; but you site is presently exposing Port 80 (i.e. HTTP)
but not Port 443 (i.e. HTTPS) it is still being filtered.

$ nmap -Pn -p80,443 panel.theminecraftgalaxy.com
Starting Nmap 7.80 ( https://nmap.org ) at 2023-12-09 21:23 UTC
Nmap scan report for panel.theminecraftgalaxy.com (73.128.9.131)
Host is up (0.093s latency).
rDNS record for 73.128.9.131: c-73-128-9-131.hsd1.md.comcast.net

PORT    STATE  SERVICE
80/tcp  open   http
443/tcp closed https

Nmap done: 1 IP address (1 host up) scanned in 0.19 seconds

This may or may not be a problem depending on your usage intent.
If you wish others from the Public Internet to connect securely with HTTPS on Port 443 (the normal and expected port) then this is an issue.

1 Like

Hi @gamegamerstudios, now both Ports 80 & 443 are open

$ nmap -Pn -p80,443 panel.theminecraftgalaxy.com
Starting Nmap 7.80 ( https://nmap.org ) at 2023-12-10 01:40 UTC
Nmap scan report for panel.theminecraftgalaxy.com (73.128.9.131)
Host is up (0.092s latency).
rDNS record for 73.128.9.131: c-73-128-9-131.hsd1.md.comcast.net

PORT    STATE SERVICE
80/tcp  open  http
443/tcp open  https

Nmap done: 1 IP address (1 host up) scanned in 0.40 seconds

And SSL Server Test (Powered by Qualys SSL Labs) is showing an Overall Rating of A SSL Server Test: panel.theminecraftgalaxy.com (Powered by Qualys SSL Labs)

I assume your issue is resolved. :slight_smile:

1 Like

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