I have been using zerossl for free certificates for a very long time. However when I recently renewed my 90 day certificate, I no longer received the certificate in text format allowing me to open each file in notepad like i would before and therefore I am unable to install the certificate into cpanel because I am unable to open them. My website is hosted by godaddy.
The zerossl website is also different from when i last used it. I now had to create an account and more importantly the process stated that I had to create a folder called pki-validation upon the web server to validate that I owned the website. I don’t think I made a mistake during the process. Attached is a screenshot of what i have received from zerossl.
The differences are because ZeroSSL actually got this certificate from a different CA, not Let’s Encrypt.
When doing HTTP validation while using the ACME protocol, like Let’s Encrypt does, the validation file has to be created in /.well-known/acme-challenge/. When using other protocols, CAs use /.well-known/pki-validation/.
I don’t know for sure, but your new client and CA probably also gave you files in the same file format that you were using before. Different people just use different file extensions for the same file format.
Ultimately, validation is validation, and a certificate is a certificate, regardless of the details like this. Your web server shouldn’t care.
If, in fact, the new certificate is using a different file format, it’s probably another common one that can easily be converted, if the need arises.
