{"id":12849,"date":"2023-01-06T07:04:10","date_gmt":"2023-01-06T07:04:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cloudkul.com\/blog\/?p=12849"},"modified":"2024-12-20T12:18:24","modified_gmt":"2024-12-20T12:18:24","slug":"automcatic-renew-and-generate-ssl-on-your-website-using-lego-client","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cloudkul.com\/blog\/automcatic-renew-and-generate-ssl-on-your-website-using-lego-client\/","title":{"rendered":"Generate and auto-renew your SSL certificates"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

In my last blog, we learned how to general SSL certificates<\/a>, here we will learn how to renew those free SSL certificates using the Lego client.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If you’re using a Let’s Encrypt certificate for your website, you’re likely aware it needs renewal every 90 days, and you can automate renewals around 60 days before expiration.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Let’s Encrypt is a global Certificate Authority (CA) that lets people and organizations around the world obtain, renew, and manage SSL\/TLS certificates<\/a>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Prerequisites<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

To follow this article, you need to have the following:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    \n
  1. You have an account on Cloudflare.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  2. Your site is running on a Linux machine using Apache or Nginx.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  3. Your site is up and running with the Lego client installed. The Lego client simplifies the process of Let’s Encrypt Certificate generation. <\/li>\n<\/ol>\n\n\n\n

    You could use the following commands to install the Lego client.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Lego \u2013 LetsEncrypt client<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

    Lego is a Let\u2019s Encrypt client and ACME library written in Go – https:\/\/go-acme.github.io\/lego\/<\/strong><\/mark><\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Install Lego<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

    Note:<\/strong> At the time of this writing, we are using version 4.9.1 for Lego.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    These are the steps to download, extract, and copy the Lego client to a directory in your path.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    cd \/tmp \n\ncurl -Ls https:\/\/api.github.com\/repos\/xenolf\/lego\/releases\/latest | grep browser_download_url | grep linux_amd64 | cut -d '\"' -f 4 | wget -i -\n\ntar xf lego_v4.9.1_linux_amd64.tar.gz\n<\/pre>\n\n\n\n
    \n
    \"lego\"<\/a><\/figure>\n<\/figure>\n\n\n\n
    sudo mkdir -p \/opt\/certs\/letsencrypt\nsudo mv lego \/opt\/certs\/letsencrypt\/lego<\/pre>\n\n\n\n
    \"lego\"<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
    Create a Cloudflare API key or Token <\/h2>\n\n\n\n
    First, you need to create an API key that has ‘Read<\/strong>‘ access to the zone of your domain and permission to ‘Edit<\/strong>‘ DNS in Cloudflare. API Tokens use the standard Authorization. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
    To create your API Token, you need to go to the ‘API Tokens’ section of your user profile  https:\/\/dash.cloudflare.com\/profile\/api-tokens<\/strong><\/mark><\/p>\n\n\n\n
    \n
    \"api\"<\/a><\/figure>\n<\/figure>\n\n\n\n
    There are two ways to create your token – <\/h3>\n\n\n\n
    You can either create it from scratch through the “Create Custom Token”<\/strong> option or you can start with a predefined template, by selecting “Use template”<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
    Here, in this case, we will use the “Edit zone DNS”<\/strong> template to create an API Token that can edit a single zone’s DNS records.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
    \n
    \"API\"<\/a><\/figure>\n<\/figure>\n\n\n\n
    once the template is selected, you need to pick a zone for the API token.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
    Notice that the DNS Edit permission was already pre-selected. Enter a token descriptive name, then add one more permission-giving zone Read access as shown in the figure below <\/p>\n\n\n\n
    \n
    \"api\"<\/a><\/figure>\n<\/figure>\n\n\n\n
    Once you select “Continue to the summary”,<\/strong> you are given a chance to review the selection.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
    Here, the resources and permissions are quite simple, but this gives you a chance to make sure you are giving the API Token exactly the correct amount of privilege before creating it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
    Once created, you are presented with the API Token. This screen is the only time you will be presented with the secret so be sure to put the secret in a safe place!<\/p>\n\n\n\n
    Anyone with this secret can perform the granted actions on the resources specified to protect it like a password. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
    In the below screenshot, we have black-box the secret for obvious reasons. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
    If you happen to lose the secret, you can always regenerate it from the API Tokens table so you don’t have to configure all the permissions again <\/p>\n\n\n\n
    \n
    \"api\"<\/a><\/figure>\n<\/figure>\n\n\n\n
    In addition to the secret itself, this page provides an example curl request that can be used to verify that the token was successfully created <\/p>\n\n\n\n
    Now, Generate a Let’s Encrypt Certificate<\/strong> <\/mark><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
    If you want to generate a new certificate for your domain, browse to the Lego installation directory and then run the following commands<\/p>\n\n\n\n
    Note: <\/mark><\/strong>Please remember to replace your CLOUDFLARE_AND_API_TOKEN value, the Domain placeholder with your actual domain name, and the email address placeholder with your email address <\/p>\n\n\n\n
    sudo CLOUDFLARE_DNS_API_TOKEN=Your-token-number .\/lego --dns cloudflare --domains your-domain-name  --email admin@webkul.com --path=\"\/opt\/certs\/letsencrypt\" run<\/pre>\n\n\n\n
    \n
    \"ssl\"<\/a><\/figure>\n<\/figure>\n\n\n\n
    Then you will receive two folders within \/opt\/certs\/letsencrypt\/ <\/p>\n\n\n\n
    \n
    \"ssl\"<\/a><\/figure>\n<\/figure>\n\n\n\n
    Here, you need to map this key from your web server<\/p>\n\n\n\n
    \n
    \"ssl\"<\/a><\/figure>\n<\/figure>\n\n\n\n
    Restart your webserver, go to the browser, and Enter your domain <\/p>\n\n\n\n
    \n
    \"ssl\"<\/a><\/figure>\n<\/figure>\n\n\n\n
    The SSL has been configured successfully with a validity of 90 days as shown in the above screenshot.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n
    Now, to automatically renew your certificates before they expire, you need to write a script to perform the above tasks and schedule a cron job to run the script periodically (e.g. every 60 days ).<\/p>\n\n\n\n
    Take the following steps – <\/h2>\n\n\n\n
    Write a script to renew the SSL certificate at the following path, you can change the path based on your installation. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
    sudo mkdir -p \/opt\/certs\/letsencrypt\/scripts\n\nsudo nano \/opt\/certs\/letsencrypt\/scripts\/renew-certificate.sh<\/pre>\n\n\n\n
    nano editor will open the file, enter the following content into the script, and save it depending on if you have Apache and Nginx<\/p>\n\n\n\n
    Please remember to replace your CLOUDFLARE_AND_API_TOKEN value, the Domain placeholder with your actual domain name, and the Email-Address placeholder with your email address <\/p>\n\n\n\n
    For Apache:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n
    #!\/bin\/bash\n\ncd \/opt\/certs\/letsencrypt\/\n\nsudo CLOUDFLARE_DNS_API_TOKEN=Your API Token .\/lego --dns cloudflare --domains domain.com --email admin@webkul.com --path=\"\/opt\/certs\/letsencrypt\" renew --days 10\n\nsudo systemctl restart apache2<\/pre>\n\n\n\n
    For Nginx : <\/strong><\/mark><\/p>\n\n\n\n
    #!\/bin\/bash\n\ncd \/opt\/certs\/letsencrypt\/\n\nsudo CLOUDFLARE_DNS_API_TOKEN=Your API Token .\/lego --dns cloudflare --domains domain.com --email admin@webkul.com --path=\"\/opt\/certs\/letsencrypt\" renew --days 10\n\nsudo systemctl restart nginx<\/pre>\n\n\n\n
    \n
    \"ssl\"<\/a><\/figure>\n<\/figure>\n\n\n\n
    Then press Ctrl+X to save the script and exit the nano editor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
    Next, you need to make the script executable using the following command <\/p>\n\n\n\n
    sudo chmod +x \/opt\/certs\/letsencrypt\/scripts\/renew-certificate.sh<\/pre>\n\n\n\n
    Next, execute the following command to open the crontab editor <\/p>\n\n\n\n
    sudo crontab -e<\/pre>\n\n\n\n
    Finally, add the below line lines to the crontab file and then press Ctrl + X to save it and exit the nano editor<\/p>\n\n\n\n
    0 0 * * * bash  \/opt\/certs\/letsencrypt\/scripts\/renew-certificate.sh 2> \/dev\/null<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n
    \n
    \"ssl\"<\/a><\/figure>\n<\/figure>\n\n\n\n
     [0 0 * * *]<\/strong> is equivalent to the script running automatically every day and renewing the certificate 10 days ago from the expiration date <\/p>\n\n\n\n
    This is the whole process to generate your SSL certificate as well as renew your SSL certificate <\/p>\n\n\n\n
    You may also visit our Magento development services and quality\u00a0<\/strong> Magento 2 Extensions<\/a><\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
    For further help or queries, please\u00a0contact<\/a>\u00a0us or raise a\u00a0ticket<\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
    In my last blog, we learned how to general SSL certificates, here we will learn […]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":39,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,87,341,340],"tags":[798,267,799,796,67,797],"yoast_head":"\nGenerate and auto-renew your SSL certificates - Cloudkul<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Let's Encrypt is a global Certificate Authority that lets people and organizations around the world obtain, renew and manage SSL\/TLS certificates.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/cloudkul.com\/blog\/automcatic-renew-and-generate-ssl-on-your-website-using-lego-client\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Generate and auto-renew your SSL certificates - 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