Using certbot to replace an existing SSL certificate?

Help
1

I set up my server to be able to use certbot but I haven't fully installed it yet. I'm on Step 7 of these instructions: Certbot - Debianbuster Apache

The documentation reads as if the user doesn't already have an SSL certificate but I do. Therefore, my question is...

Is it safe to run sudo certbot --apache in order to replace my current certificate or should I perform some manual steps beforehand?

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):
Apache 2
The operating system my web server runs on is (include version):
Debian 10
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):
no
The version of my client is (e.g. output of certbot --version or certbot-auto --version if you're using Certbot):
1.14.0

2

It should work, if certbot can understand your current Apache configuration. Assuming your Apache configuration isn't weird or incorrect, this should be the case.

Certbot will get a new certificate and will store it in /etc/letsencrypt/, so your current certificate won't be overwritten (assuming it wasn't a certificate previously stored in /etc/letsencrypt/). The only thing certbot should do after it gets the new certificate, is update the references to the previous certificate in your Apache configuration to the new certificate.

3

Thanks! I was nervous about deploying it but just did now and it seems to have worked perfectly. Hooray!

4

You should still be able to find your previous certificate at its own location :slight_smile:

5

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