SSLCertificateKeyFile: file '/etc/letsencrypt/keys/0000_key-certbot.pem' does not exist or is empty

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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. https://crt.sh/?q=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: rrm.altogethr.com

I ran this command: apachectl -D DUMP_VHOSTS

It produced this output: AH00526: Syntax error on line 42 of /etc/apache2/sites-enabled/default-ssl.conf:

SSLCertificateKeyFile: file ‘/etc/letsencrypt/keys/0000_key-certbot.pem’ does not exist or is empty

Action ‘-D DUMP_VHOSTS’ failed.

My web server is (include version): Server version: Apache/2.4.18 (Ubuntu)
Server built: 2019-09-16T13:13:53

The operating system my web server runs on is (include version): Ubuntu 16.04.6 LTS

My hosting provider, if applicable, is: Amazon

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 0.27.0

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2

firstly with obvious. did you check if that file is exist?
and if you don’t have permission sometimes it says that file is not exsit- because it can’t read

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Yup. File exists:

$ sudo ls -l /etc/letsencrypt/keys

-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 1704 Dec 30 00:34 0000_key-certbot.pem

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4

Did you run apachectl as root?

FWIW, /etc/letsencrypt/keys/ basically contains internal files. Software is intended to be configured to use /etc/letsencrypt/live/ for things.

5

I was executing the following:
sudo /etc/init.d/apache2 restart

And my installation does not contain a “live” subdirectory under /etc/letsencrypt

6

The Apache error doesn’t make much sense, then. :confused:

(Could some kind of AppArmor or systemd rules be blocking it?)

Do you have any Let’s Encrypt certificates on that instance?

7

I verified Let’s encrypt certificates by executing the following:

https://crt.sh/?q=rrm.altogethr.com

8

But the most recent certificate was issued almost 2 months ago.

The fact that you have a “0000_key-certbot.pem” file created today suggests that it might be a new installation.

(FYI, crt.sh currently doesn’t display any certificates issued since November 24, I checked another site too.)

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I just executed sudo certbot --apache to retrieve another certificate and get the following:

Saving debug log to /var/log/letsencrypt/letsencrypt.log
Plugins selected: Authenticator apache, Installer apache

Starting new HTTPS connection (1): acme-v02.api.letsencrypt.org

Which names would you like to activate HTTPS for?

1: rrm.altogethr.com
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Select the appropriate numbers separated by commas and/or spaces, or leave input
blank to select all options shown (Enter 'c' to cancel): 1

Obtaining a new certificate

Performing the following challenges:

http-01 challenge for rrm.altogethr.com

Error while running apache2ctl graceful.

httpd not running, trying to start

Action 'graceful' failed.

The Apache error log may have more information.

Unable to restart apache using ['apache2ctl', 'graceful']

Cleaning up challenges

Error while running apache2ctl graceful.

httpd not running, trying to start

Action 'graceful' failed.

The Apache error log may have more information.

Unable to restart apache using ['apache2ctl', 'graceful']

Encountered exception during recovery: 

Traceback (most recent call last):

File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/certbot/error_handler.py", line 108, in _call_registered

self.funcs[-1]()

File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/certbot/auth_handler.py", line 310, in _cleanup_challenges

self.auth.cleanup(achalls)

File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/certbot_apache/configurator.py", line 2132, in cleanup

self.restart()

File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/certbot_apache/configurator.py", line 1995, in restart

self._reload()

File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/certbot_apache/configurator.py", line 2023, in _reload

raise errors.MisconfigurationError(error)

MisconfigurationError: Error while running apache2ctl graceful.

httpd not running, trying to start

Action 'graceful' failed.

The Apache error log may have more information.

Error while running apache2ctl graceful.

httpd not running, trying to start

Action 'graceful' failed.

The Apache error log may have more information.
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