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:
I ran this command:
It produced this output:
My web server is (include version):
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):
I'm using a control panel to manage my site (no, or provide the name and version of the control panel):
You have to open port 80. Or you may use the dns-01 - challenge, so you have to create a dns-entry _acme-challenge.yourdomain.com (type txt) with a special value.
it is true that if I put mydomain.com in my browser I get a timeout… I tried crt.sh, nothing there either…
however if I test port 80 on my domain it is open but I guess apache will redirect to 443 internally because at the moment I am using a self signed cert.
not sure what “public” means ? need an html page ?
There must be a public dns-entry yourdomain.com -> some entries. So that Letsencrypt can confirm, that you are owner of yourdomain.com
There are actual two simple validations:
You can create a dns entry (type txt) with the name _acme-challenge.yourdomain.com and a special value given from Letsencrypt. Then you don't need a webserver (dns-01 - challenge).
You have a dns-entry yourdomain.com -> ip-address, there is port 80 open, you put a special file into
To do that your port 80 must be open (http-01 - challenge).
The problem with the dns-01 - challenge is, that the renew (every 60 - 80 days) needs an api of your dns-provider. Or you have to do that manual. So if there is a webserver, the http-01 - challenge is simple, certbot can save the file direct.
PS: If you create a certificate, then this is logged with your domain name. Then it can be found using one of the Certificate transpareny logs. So your domain name is public.