Unable to renew certificate

Help
1

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: rpiweather.net

I ran this command: sudo certbot certonly --webroot -w /var/www/rpiweather.net -d rpiweather.net -d www.rpiweather.net

It produced this output:

Saving debug log to /var/log/letsencrypt/letsencrypt.log
Plugins selected: Authenticator webroot, Installer None
Cert is due for renewal, auto-renewing...
Renewing an existing certificate for rpiweather.net and www.rpiweather.net
Performing the following challenges:
http-01 challenge for rpiweather.net
http-01 challenge for www.rpiweather.net
Using the webroot path /var/www/rpiweather.net for all unmatched domains.
Waiting for verification...
Challenge failed for domain rpiweather.net
Challenge failed for domain www.rpiweather.net
http-01 challenge for rpiweather.net
http-01 challenge for www.rpiweather.net
Cleaning up challenges
Some challenges have failed.

IMPORTANT NOTES:
 - The following errors were reported by the server:

   Domain: rpiweather.net
   Type:   unauthorized
   Detail: 2600:4040:5050:ce00:d6c2:fe84:f82f:13a7: Invalid response
   from
   http://rpiweather.net/.well-known/acme-challenge/j2RK-aaFFA41TrzHXsP262ehIqME0NF8ZM-5XIfTOU0:
   404

   Domain: www.rpiweather.net
   Type:   unauthorized
   Detail: 2600:4040:5050:ce00:d6c2:fe84:f82f:13a7: Invalid response
   from
   http://www.rpiweather.net/.well-known/acme-challenge/a-NOQCeXGYTuLyAx-4jkC9Agf245fgNVuDHdaoJK63A:
   404

   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): nginx/1.18.0

The operating system my web server runs on is (include version): Raspbian GNU/Linux 11 (bullseye)

My hosting provider, if applicable, is:

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):

The version of my client is (e.g. output of certbot --version or certbot-auto --version if you're using Certbot): certbot 1.12.0

This has been working since April of 2024 (see Adding a subdomain - #11 by MJHanagan) , but a few days ago the certificate renewal was not successful.

I don't see anything different in the A/AAAA record setup (DNS managed by dynu.com) and I can ping the IPV4 and IPV6 addresses and I can get a response from a curl command:

C:\Users\micha>curl -Ii4k https://rpiweather.net/
HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Server: nginx/1.18.0
Date: Wed, 26 Jun 2024 22:00:18 GMT
Content-Type: text/html
Content-Length: 1593
Last-Modified: Sun, 11 Feb 2024 22:19:04 GMT
Connection: keep-alive
ETag: "65c947d8-639"
Accept-Ranges: bytes

so I assume the Raspberry Pi is online.
Any ideas on what could be wrong?

2

That isn't the normal command to renew a cert. That would be:

sudo certbot renew

The renew command uses the Certbot profile that saved the settings from the last time you got a cert.

You can test it using sudo certbot renew --dry-run

Looking back at your previous posts I see you used a different webroot-path than you show above. That is likely the reason for your "404" error

Just try sudo certbot renew --dry-run and let us know what it says

2 Likes
3

I got this:

pi@HomeAutomation:~/dynudns $ sudo certbot renew --dry-run
Saving debug log to /var/log/letsencrypt/letsencrypt.log

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Processing /etc/letsencrypt/renewal/rpiweather.net.conf
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Cert is due for renewal, auto-renewing...
Plugins selected: Authenticator webroot, Installer None
Simulating renewal of an existing certificate for rpiweather.net and www.rpiweather.net
Performing the following challenges:
http-01 challenge for rpiweather.net
http-01 challenge for www.rpiweather.net
Using the webroot path /var/www/rpiweather.net for all unmatched domains.
Waiting for verification...
Challenge failed for domain rpiweather.net
Challenge failed for domain www.rpiweather.net
http-01 challenge for rpiweather.net
http-01 challenge for www.rpiweather.net
Cleaning up challenges
Failed to renew certificate rpiweather.net with error: Some challenges have failed.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Processing /etc/letsencrypt/renewal/sandbox.rpiweather.net.conf
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Cert is due for renewal, auto-renewing...
Plugins selected: Authenticator webroot, Installer None
Simulating renewal of an existing certificate for sandbox.rpiweather.net and www.sandbox.rpiweather.net
Performing the following challenges:
http-01 challenge for sandbox.rpiweather.net
http-01 challenge for www.sandbox.rpiweather.net
Using the webroot path /var/www/sandbox.rpiweather.net for all unmatched domains.
Waiting for verification...
Challenge failed for domain sandbox.rpiweather.net
Challenge failed for domain www.sandbox.rpiweather.net
http-01 challenge for sandbox.rpiweather.net
http-01 challenge for www.sandbox.rpiweather.net
Cleaning up challenges
Failed to renew certificate sandbox.rpiweather.net with error: Some challenges have failed.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
All simulated renewals failed. The following certificates could not be renewed:
  /etc/letsencrypt/live/rpiweather.net/fullchain.pem (failure)
  /etc/letsencrypt/live/sandbox.rpiweather.net/fullchain.pem (failure)
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
2 renew failure(s), 0 parse failure(s)

IMPORTANT NOTES:
 - The following errors were reported by the server:

   Domain: rpiweather.net
   Type:   unauthorized
   Detail: 2600:4040:5050:ce00:d6c2:fe84:f82f:13a7: Invalid response
   from
   http://rpiweather.net/.well-known/acme-challenge/endoNovwMdpqTWyNs6dA24DcfohZGjehrwaT14oFwAc:
   404

   Domain: www.rpiweather.net
   Type:   unauthorized
   Detail: 2600:4040:5050:ce00:d6c2:fe84:f82f:13a7: Invalid response
   from
   http://www.rpiweather.net/.well-known/acme-challenge/en-QFB1ealYGYQYOWRvoTSvXcJ4DeLgWTf9mKZouKaE:
   404

   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.
 - The following errors were reported by the server:

   Domain: sandbox.rpiweather.net
   Type:   unauthorized
   Detail: 2600:4040:5050:ce00:d6c2:fe84:f82f:13a7: Invalid response
   from
   http://sandbox.rpiweather.net/.well-known/acme-challenge/-wgGZqr1Th61cQEfGURZqW0bd15zId2-yV157tkzRn8:
   404

   Domain: www.sandbox.rpiweather.net
   Type:   unauthorized
   Detail: 2600:4040:5050:ce00:d6c2:fe84:f82f:13a7: Invalid response
   from
   http://www.sandbox.rpiweather.net/.well-known/acme-challenge/GfvboZoLbCuywMy8VSxs-ImKquN_KmpYqdz0o9shqjQ:
   404

   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.

Seems much the same.

4

Seems like we spent like 50 posts fixing this exact problem a couple months ago.

What did you do ! :slight_smile:

Anyway, let's start by having you show output of below command and contents of all the renewal conf files in /etc/letsencrypt/renewal

sudo certbot certificates
2 Likes
5

I don't recall fiddling with anything related to the SSL stuff.

Here is the output requested:

pi@HomeAutomation:~ $ sudo certbot certificates
Saving debug log to /var/log/letsencrypt/letsencrypt.log

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Found the following certs:
  Certificate Name: rpiweather.net
    Serial Number: 349d764bbce954fcc7e2aa5ee51e3d9291a
    Key Type: RSA
    Domains: rpiweather.net www.rpiweather.net
    Expiry Date: 2024-06-22 20:08:59+00:00 (INVALID: EXPIRED)
    Certificate Path: /etc/letsencrypt/live/rpiweather.net/fullchain.pem
    Private Key Path: /etc/letsencrypt/live/rpiweather.net/privkey.pem
  Certificate Name: sandbox.rpiweather.net
    Serial Number: 427952919c2d7d4e2241f482d068c7a6f28
    Key Type: RSA
    Domains: sandbox.rpiweather.net www.sandbox.rpiweather.net
    Expiry Date: 2024-07-19 03:05:08+00:00 (VALID: 21 days)
    Certificate Path: /etc/letsencrypt/live/sandbox.rpiweather.net/fullchain.pem
    Private Key Path: /etc/letsencrypt/live/sandbox.rpiweather.net/privkey.pem
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
pi@HomeAutomation:~ $
6

and what about those?

1 Like
7

Oops, forgot about those in my rush this morning...

pi@HomeAutomation:/etc/letsencrypt/renewal $ cat rpiweather.net.conf
# renew_before_expiry = 30 days
version = 1.12.0
archive_dir = /etc/letsencrypt/archive/rpiweather.net
cert = /etc/letsencrypt/live/rpiweather.net/cert.pem
privkey = /etc/letsencrypt/live/rpiweather.net/privkey.pem
chain = /etc/letsencrypt/live/rpiweather.net/chain.pem
fullchain = /etc/letsencrypt/live/rpiweather.net/fullchain.pem

# Options used in the renewal process
[renewalparams]
account = 22f11c2682252f199a80194e926e36ea
authenticator = webroot
webroot_path = /var/www/rpiweather.net,
server = https://acme-v02.api.letsencrypt.org/directory
[[webroot_map]]
pi@HomeAutomation:/etc/letsencrypt/renewal $ cat sandbox.rpiweather.net.conf
# renew_before_expiry = 30 days
version = 1.12.0
archive_dir = /etc/letsencrypt/archive/sandbox.rpiweather.net
cert = /etc/letsencrypt/live/sandbox.rpiweather.net/cert.pem
privkey = /etc/letsencrypt/live/sandbox.rpiweather.net/privkey.pem
chain = /etc/letsencrypt/live/sandbox.rpiweather.net/chain.pem
fullchain = /etc/letsencrypt/live/sandbox.rpiweather.net/fullchain.pem

# Options used in the renewal process
[renewalparams]
account = 22f11c2682252f199a80194e926e36ea
authenticator = webroot
webroot_path = /var/www/sandbox.rpiweather.net,
server = https://acme-v02.api.letsencrypt.org/directory
[[webroot_map]]
www.sandbox.rpiweather.net = /var/www/sandbox.rpiweather.net
pi@HomeAutomation:/etc/letsencrypt/renewal $
1 Like
8

could you upload something on /var/www/rpiweather.net so we can test we can see it?

2 Likes
9

Even better would be to show the entire output of this

sudo nginx -T

With an uppercase T

Your previous thread had a different webroot folder although there was some discussion about the best practice. So, maybe you reverted to an earlier choice.

It will be easier to see what needs to be changed by seeing the whole nginx config. Thanks

1 Like
10

It has these already:

pi@HomeAutomation:/var/www/rpiweather.net $ ls
chem  chemical.png  favicon.ico  gpsTracker  index.html  projects.png  RPiLogo180.png  style.css  tracker.png  weather  weather.png
pi@HomeAutomation:/var/www/rpiweather.net $

When I connect locally I get this:

2024_06_27_18_23_56_RPiWeather_Homepage
2024_06_27_18_23_56_RPiWeather_Homepage850×470 78.4 KB

I assume from that nginx is doing its thing, yes?

11

I kinda think you may used --nginx option before and certbot reconfigured to catch acme-challenge dir

12

I got this...


pi@HomeAutomation:/var/www/rpiweather.net $ sudo nginx -T
nginx: the configuration file /etc/nginx/nginx.conf syntax is ok
nginx: configuration file /etc/nginx/nginx.conf test is successful
# configuration file /etc/nginx/nginx.conf:
user www-data;
worker_processes auto;
pid /run/nginx.pid;
include /etc/nginx/modules-enabled/*.conf;

events {
        worker_connections 768;
        # multi_accept on;
}

http {

        ##
        # Basic Settings
        ##

        sendfile on;
        tcp_nopush on;
        types_hash_max_size 2048;
        # server_tokens off;

        server_names_hash_bucket_size 64;
        # server_name_in_redirect off;

        include /etc/nginx/mime.types;
        default_type application/octet-stream;

        ##
        # SSL Settings
        ##

        ssl_protocols TLSv1 TLSv1.1 TLSv1.2 TLSv1.3; # Dropping SSLv3, ref: POODLE
        ssl_prefer_server_ciphers on;

        ##
        # Logging Settings
        ##

        access_log /var/log/nginx/access.log;
        error_log /var/log/nginx/error.log;

        ##
        # Gzip Settings
        ##

        gzip on;

        # gzip_vary on;
        # gzip_proxied any;
        # gzip_comp_level 6;
        # gzip_buffers 16 8k;
        # gzip_http_version 1.1;
        # gzip_types text/plain text/css application/json application/javascript text/xml application/xml application/xml+rss text/javascript;

        ##
        # Virtual Host Configs
        ##

        include /etc/nginx/conf.d/*.conf;
        include /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/*;
}


#mail {
#       # See sample authentication script at:
#       # http://wiki.nginx.org/ImapAuthenticateWithApachePhpScript
#
#       # auth_http localhost/auth.php;
#       # pop3_capabilities "TOP" "USER";
#       # imap_capabilities "IMAP4rev1" "UIDPLUS";
#
#       server {
#               listen     localhost:110;
#               protocol   pop3;
#               proxy      on;
#       }
#
#       server {
#               listen     localhost:143;
#               protocol   imap;
#               proxy      on;
#       }
#}

# configuration file /etc/nginx/modules-enabled/50-mod-http-geoip.conf:
load_module modules/ngx_http_geoip_module.so;

# configuration file /etc/nginx/modules-enabled/50-mod-http-image-filter.conf:
load_module modules/ngx_http_image_filter_module.so;

# configuration file /etc/nginx/modules-enabled/50-mod-http-xslt-filter.conf:
load_module modules/ngx_http_xslt_filter_module.so;

# configuration file /etc/nginx/modules-enabled/50-mod-mail.conf:
load_module modules/ngx_mail_module.so;

# configuration file /etc/nginx/modules-enabled/50-mod-stream.conf:
load_module modules/ngx_stream_module.so;

# configuration file /etc/nginx/modules-enabled/70-mod-stream-geoip.conf:
load_module modules/ngx_stream_geoip_module.so;

# configuration file /etc/nginx/mime.types:

types {
    text/html                             html htm shtml;
    text/css                              css;
    text/xml                              xml;
    image/gif                             gif;
    image/jpeg                            jpeg jpg;
    application/javascript                js;
    application/atom+xml                  atom;
    application/rss+xml                   rss;

    text/mathml                           mml;
    text/plain                            txt;
    text/vnd.sun.j2me.app-descriptor      jad;
    text/vnd.wap.wml                      wml;
    text/x-component                      htc;

    image/png                             png;
    image/tiff                            tif tiff;
    image/vnd.wap.wbmp                    wbmp;
    image/x-icon                          ico;
    image/x-jng                           jng;
    image/x-ms-bmp                        bmp;
    image/svg+xml                         svg svgz;
    image/webp                            webp;

    application/font-woff                 woff;
    application/java-archive              jar war ear;
    application/json                      json;
    application/mac-binhex40              hqx;
    application/msword                    doc;
    application/pdf                       pdf;
    application/postscript                ps eps ai;
    application/rtf                       rtf;
    application/vnd.apple.mpegurl         m3u8;
    application/vnd.ms-excel              xls;
    application/vnd.ms-fontobject         eot;
    application/vnd.ms-powerpoint         ppt;
    application/vnd.wap.wmlc              wmlc;
    application/vnd.google-earth.kml+xml  kml;
    application/vnd.google-earth.kmz      kmz;
    application/x-7z-compressed           7z;
    application/x-cocoa                   cco;
    application/x-java-archive-diff       jardiff;
    application/x-java-jnlp-file          jnlp;
    application/x-makeself                run;
    application/x-perl                    pl pm;
    application/x-pilot                   prc pdb;
    application/x-rar-compressed          rar;
    application/x-redhat-package-manager  rpm;
    application/x-sea                     sea;
    application/x-shockwave-flash         swf;
    application/x-stuffit                 sit;
    application/x-tcl                     tcl tk;
    application/x-x509-ca-cert            der pem crt;
    application/x-xpinstall               xpi;
    application/xhtml+xml                 xhtml;
    application/xspf+xml                  xspf;
    application/zip                       zip;

    application/octet-stream              bin exe dll;
    application/octet-stream              deb;
    application/octet-stream              dmg;
    application/octet-stream              iso img;
    application/octet-stream              msi msp msm;

    application/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.wordprocessingml.document    docx;
    application/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.spreadsheetml.sheet          xlsx;
    application/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.presentationml.presentation  pptx;

    audio/midi                            mid midi kar;
    audio/mpeg                            mp3;
    audio/ogg                             ogg;
    audio/x-m4a                           m4a;
    audio/x-realaudio                     ra;

    video/3gpp                            3gpp 3gp;
    video/mp2t                            ts;
    video/mp4                             mp4;
    video/mpeg                            mpeg mpg;
    video/quicktime                       mov;
    video/webm                            webm;
    video/x-flv                           flv;
    video/x-m4v                           m4v;
    video/x-mng                           mng;
    video/x-ms-asf                        asx asf;
    video/x-ms-wmv                        wmv;
    video/x-msvideo                       avi;
}

# configuration file /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/default:
##
# You should look at the following URL's in order to grasp a solid understanding
# of Nginx configuration files in order to fully unleash the power of Nginx.
# https://www.nginx.com/resources/wiki/start/
# https://www.nginx.com/resources/wiki/start/topics/tutorials/config_pitfalls/
# https://wiki.debian.org/Nginx/DirectoryStructure
#
# In most cases, administrators will remove this file from sites-enabled/ and
# leave it as reference inside of sites-available where it will continue to be
# updated by the nginx packaging team.
#
# This file will automatically load configuration files provided by other
# applications, such as Drupal or Wordpress. These applications will be made
# available underneath a path with that package name, such as /drupal8.
#
# Please see /usr/share/doc/nginx-doc/examples/ for more detailed examples.
##

# Default server configuration
#
server {
        listen 80 default_server;
        listen [::]:80 default_server;

        # SSL configuration
        #
        # listen 443 ssl default_server;
        # listen [::]:443 ssl default_server;
        #
        # Note: You should disable gzip for SSL traffic.
        # See: https://bugs.debian.org/773332
        #
        # Read up on ssl_ciphers to ensure a secure configuration.
        # See: https://bugs.debian.org/765782
        #
        # Self signed certs generated by the ssl-cert package
        # Don't use them in a production server!
        #
        # include snippets/snakeoil.conf;

        root /var/www/html;

        # Add index.php to the list if you are using PHP
        index index.html index.htm index.nginx-debian.html;

        server_name _;

        location / {
                # First attempt to serve request as file, then
                # as directory, then fall back to displaying a 404.
                try_files $uri $uri/ =404;
        }

        # pass PHP scripts to FastCGI server
        #
        #location ~ \.php$ {
        #       include snippets/fastcgi-php.conf;
        #
        #       # With php-fpm (or other unix sockets):
        #       fastcgi_pass unix:/run/php/php7.4-fpm.sock;
        #       # With php-cgi (or other tcp sockets):
        #       fastcgi_pass 127.0.0.1:9000;
        #}

        # deny access to .htaccess files, if Apache's document root
        # concurs with nginx's one
        #
        #location ~ /\.ht {
        #       deny all;
        #}
}


# Virtual Host configuration for example.com
#
# You can move that to a different file under sites-available/ and symlink that
# to sites-enabled/ to enable it.
#
#server {
#       listen 80;
#       listen [::]:80;
#
#       server_name example.com;
#
#       root /var/www/example.com;
#       index index.html;
#
#       location / {
#               try_files $uri $uri/ =404;
#       }
#}

# configuration file /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/rpiweather.net:
server {
       listen 80;
       listen [::]:80;
       server_name rpiweather.net www.rpiweather.net;

       # ACME Challenges use this root folder (from your old https server block)
       location /.well-known/acme-challenge/ {
         root /var/www/ACMEchallenge;
       }

       # All other requests get redirected to https
       location / {
          return 301 https://$host$request_uri;
       }
}

server {
       listen 443 ssl;
       listen [::]:443 ssl;

       server_name rpiweather.net www.rpiweather.net;

       root /var/www/rpiweather.net;
       index index.html;

       # RSA certificate
       ssl_certificate /etc/letsencrypt/live/rpiweather.net/fullchain.pem; # managed by Certbot
       ssl_certificate_key /etc/letsencrypt/live/rpiweather.net/privkey.pem; # managed by Certbot

       #include /etc/letsencrypt/options-ssl-nginx.conf; # managed by Certbot

       location / {
               try_files $uri $uri/ =404;
       }
}

# configuration file /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/sandbox.rpiweather.net:
# sudo certbot certonly --dry-run --webroot -w /etc/nginx -d sandbox.rpiweather.net,www.sandbox.rpiweather.net

server {
       listen 80;
       listen [::]:80;
       server_name sandbox.rpiweather.net www.sandbox.rpiweather.net;

       # ACME Challenges use this root folder (from your old https server block)
       location /.well-known/acme-challenge/ {
         root /var/www/ACMEchallenge;
       }

       # All other requests get redirected to https
       location / {
          return 301 https://$host$request_uri;
       }
}

server {
       listen 443 ssl;
       listen [::]:443 ssl;

       server_name sandbox.rpiweather.net www.sandbox.rpiweather.net;

       root /var/www/sandbox.rpiweather.net;
       index index.html;

       # RSA certificate
       ssl_certificate     /etc/letsencrypt/live/sandbox.rpiweather.net/fullchain.pem; # managed by Certbot
       ssl_certificate_key /etc/letsencrypt/live/sandbox.rpiweather.net/privkey.pem; # managed by Certbot

       #include /etc/letsencrypt/options-ssl-nginx.conf; # managed by Certbot

       location / {
               try_files $uri $uri/ =404;
       }
}

# configuration file /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/sandbox2.rpiweather.net:
# sudo certbot certonly --dry-run --webroot -w /etc/nginx -d sandbox.rpiweather.net,www.sandbox.rpiweather.net

server {
       listen 80;
       listen [::]:80;
       server_name sandbox2.rpiweather.net www.sandbox2.rpiweather.net;

       # ACME Challenges use this root folder (from your old https server block)
       location /.well-known/acme-challenge/ {
         root /var/www/ACMEchallenge;
       }

       # All other requests get redirected to https
       location / {
          return 301 https://$host$request_uri;
       }
}

server {
       listen 443 ssl;
       listen [::]:443 ssl;

       server_name sandbox2.rpiweather.net www.sandbox2.rpiweather.net;

       root /var/www/sandbox2.rpiweather.net;
       index index.html;

       # RSA certificate
       #ssl_certificate /etc/letsencrypt/live/sandbox.rpiweather.net/fullchain.pem; # managed by Certbot
       #ssl_certificate_key /etc/letsencrypt/live/sandbox.rpiweather.net/privkey.pem; # managed by Certbot

       #include /etc/letsencrypt/options-ssl-nginx.conf; # managed by Certbot

       location / {
               try_files $uri $uri/ =404;
       }
}

pi@HomeAutomation:/var/www/rpiweather.net $
13

configuration file /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/rpiweather.net:

server {
listen 80;
listen [::]:80;
server_name rpiweather.net www.rpiweather.net;

   # ACME Challenges use this root folder (from your old https server block)
   location /.well-known/acme-challenge/ {
     root /var/www/ACMEchallenge;
   }

   # All other requests get redirected to https
   location / {
      return 301 https://$host$request_uri;
   }

}

yes it used --nginx option before: renew it with --nginx option

14

No, did not. The Certbot renewal profile is for webroot

The problem is they adjusted nginx per Rudy's suggestion in prior thread but they did not refresh the renewal profile with the needed command.

The easiest way forward is to change nginx back so that it matches the Certbot renewal profile webroot-path

I will explain the exact steps in my next post :slight_smile:

3 Likes
15

Change these lines

to look like this:

server {
       listen 80;
       listen [::]:80;
       server_name rpiweather.net www.rpiweather.net;

       # ACME Challenges use this root folder (from your old https server block)
       location /.well-known/acme-challenge/ {
         root /var/www/rpiweather.net;
       }

AND ... (see next post)

3 Likes
16

And these lines

To look like this:

server {
       listen 80;
       listen [::]:80;
       server_name sandbox.rpiweather.net www.sandbox.rpiweather.net;

       # ACME Challenges use this root folder (from your old https server block)
       location /.well-known/acme-challenge/ {
         root /var/www/sandbox.rpiweather.net;
       }
3 Likes
17

In both prior 2 posts only change the lines indicated. We are just changing the location path so that it matches what you used to get the prior cert and which created the Certbot renewal profile.

Keep the other location statement with the return statement as they were.

Once that is done and you have restarted nginx do this to test

sudo certbot renew --dry-run

If that is successful do it again but without --dry-run

3 Likes
18

Ah ha, that worked! The certificate renewed after making those changes:

pi@HomeAutomation:~ $ sudo certbot renew
Saving debug log to /var/log/letsencrypt/letsencrypt.log

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Processing /etc/letsencrypt/renewal/rpiweather.net.conf
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Cert is due for renewal, auto-renewing...
Plugins selected: Authenticator webroot, Installer None
Renewing an existing certificate for rpiweather.net and www.rpiweather.net
Performing the following challenges:
http-01 challenge for rpiweather.net
http-01 challenge for www.rpiweather.net
Using the webroot path /var/www/rpiweather.net for all unmatched domains.
Waiting for verification...
Cleaning up challenges

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
new certificate deployed without reload, fullchain is
/etc/letsencrypt/live/rpiweather.net/fullchain.pem
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Processing /etc/letsencrypt/renewal/sandbox.rpiweather.net.conf
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Cert is due for renewal, auto-renewing...
Plugins selected: Authenticator webroot, Installer None
Renewing an existing certificate for sandbox.rpiweather.net and www.sandbox.rpiweather.net
Performing the following challenges:
http-01 challenge for sandbox.rpiweather.net
http-01 challenge for www.sandbox.rpiweather.net
Using the webroot path /var/www/sandbox.rpiweather.net for all unmatched domains.
Waiting for verification...
Cleaning up challenges

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
new certificate deployed without reload, fullchain is
/etc/letsencrypt/live/sandbox.rpiweather.net/fullchain.pem
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Congratulations, all renewals succeeded:
  /etc/letsencrypt/live/rpiweather.net/fullchain.pem (success)
  /etc/letsencrypt/live/sandbox.rpiweather.net/fullchain.pem (success)
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
pi@HomeAutomation:~ $

I did have to reboot after the change for the renew command to work. I also needed to reboot after the renewal process for the website to be reachable.

All seems good (for now :joy:). Thank you for the much needed help!

4 Likes
19

Yes, we should have instructed you about the deploy-hook. That hook can reload nginx after Certbot gets a fresh cert. A reload or restart is required for nginx to see the new cert. A reload is less disruptive than restart so is preferred.

Newer versions of Certbot have a very nice way to add / change that hook. With your version we need to do something like below.

WARNING: This is one of the rare cases where --force-renewal is helpful. Use this ONCE to effect this deploy-hook. Using it repeatedly will result in you getting rate limited. With that noted:

sudo certbot renew --deploy-hook 'reload-command' --force-renewal

Where reload-command is what you use to reload nginx. Often like one of these:

sudo service nginx reload
sudo systemctl reload nginx

Place the command needed on your system inside quotes as shown in my example above.

You can check it worked by reviewing the renewal conf files in /etc/letsencrypt/renewal. You will see a new line for renew_hook (sic) in it. And, yes, the hook has a different name inside this conf file than on the command line. We do not recommend manually editing these renewal conf files. It is easy to damage them.

2 Likes