Too many authorizations on a domain with request rate exception

[ryannix123]

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My domain is: msi.apps.northwestern.edu

I ran this command: It was automated through Virtualmin Pro

It produced this output:
Parsing account key…
Parsing CSR…
Registering account…
Already registered!
Verifying msi.apps.northwestern.edu…
Traceback (most recent call last):
File “/usr/share/webmin/webmin/acme_tiny.py”, line 203, in
main(sys.argv[1:])
File “/usr/share/webmin/webmin/acme_tiny.py”, line 199, in main
signed_crt = get_crt(args.account_key, args.csr, args.acme_dir, log=LOGGER, CA=args.ca)
File “/usr/share/webmin/webmin/acme_tiny.py”, line 109, in get_crt
raise ValueError(“Error requesting challenges: {0} {1}”.format(code, result))
ValueError: Error requesting challenges: 429 {
“type”: “urn:acme:error:rateLimited”,
“detail”: “Error creating new authz :: too many currently pending authorizations”,
“status”: 429
}

My operating system is (include version): Ubuntu 16.04

My web server is (include version): Apache 2.4.18

My hosting provider, if applicable, is: Internal host using Virtualmin Pro

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): Yes, VirtualMin Pro 5.07

[ryannix123]

Hello? Anyone have any insights?

[Samatva]

I do know that I once tried to get a free "throw-away" certificate from a commercial SSL vendor for an internal test server for a university project (the faculty members evaluating the project would have freaked out at any warning or approval request message). The vendor would not issue the certificate because of the .edu main domain being registered with another vendor....

Check this thread to see if it is the same issue:

Rate limiting at an educational institution

I…

[schoen]

This is a different rate limit from the certificates per domain rate limit (from which a university or other domain holder can get an exemption).

https://letsencrypt.org/docs/rate-limits/

This one “is generally the result of a buggy client” requesting permission to obtain certificates but then not actually obtaining them. Do you have a system administrator responsible for your Virtualmin Pro installation? Is it shared with a lot of other users?

[ryannix123]

Thanks, Seth. I’m the administrator on the Virtualmin Pro hosting instance. We have about 70 virtual hosts on the instance.

[ryannix123]

And now I’m getting this error on brand new subdomains too, where I’m requesting the cert for the first time.

Requesting a certificate for monitor.sesp.northwestern.edu from Let’s Encrypt …
… request failed : Failed to request certificate :

Parsing account key…
Parsing CSR…
Registering account…
Already registered!
Verifying monitor.sesp.northwestern.edu…
Traceback (most recent call last):
File “/usr/share/webmin/webmin/acme_tiny.py”, line 203, in
main(sys.argv[1:])
File “/usr/share/webmin/webmin/acme_tiny.py”, line 199, in main
signed_crt = get_crt(args.account_key, args.csr, args.acme_dir, log=LOGGER, CA=args.ca)
File “/usr/share/webmin/webmin/acme_tiny.py”, line 109, in get_crt
raise ValueError(“Error requesting challenges: {0} {1}”.format(code, result))
ValueError: Error requesting challenges: 429 {
“type”: “urn:acme:error:rateLimited”,
“detail”: “Error creating new authz :: too many currently pending authorizations”,
“status”: 429
}

[ryannix123]

Seems like we might be having the same problem as the University of Alabama and RPI? We’re actually the only group on campus using LE that I know of, so I don’t think it’s a problem where all the other IT groups with their respective domains are impinging upon the rate limit. Is there anything that can be done?