Lets Encrypt Certificate
It's Too Easy!
The process was super simple and the 3 commands to run were included in the email:
# Clone the repo git clone https://github.com/letsencrypt/letsencrypt # Change Directory cd letsencrypt # Run the script ./letsencrypt-auto --agree-dev-preview --server https://acme-v01.api.letsencrypt.org/directory certonly
Easy as that. This launched an interactive dialog
interface that asked a couple of simple questions like which domains I wanted to generate certs for and that was it I was left with a new Apache vhost config in the sites-avaliable
directory, I just simply run a2ensite mountainofcode.co.uk-le-ssl.conf
and you're done, free and secure! Took less than a minute
The new VHost that was created was an exact copy of the non SSL vhost I was currently using but with the releveant SSL directives SSLCertificateFile
and SSLCertificateKeyFile
added and also an Include
for some SSL related settings, although I did have to add the paths to the actual cert files my self but this was trivial.
One thing I did have to do myself was add the SSLCertificateChainFile
directive as Firefox was complaining that the certificate was untrusted, again easy enough to do, don't know if this is due to the beta?
SSL All The Things
I'm really hoping to see a massive rise in the number of sites using SSL certs when the Lets Encrypt SSL certs are made generally avalaible on the week beginning 16 Nov 2015 esspecially from smaller sites, as there is litteraly no barrier to entry any more, no cost, and minimal effort required from the server admin.