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How to setup Let's Encrypt for Nginx on Ubuntu 16.04 (including IPv6, HTTP/2 and A+ SLL rating)

How to setup Let's Encrypt for Nginx on Ubuntu 16.04 (including IPv6, HTTP/2 and A+ SLL rating)

There are two modes when you don't want Certbot to edit your configuration:

  • Standalone: replaces the webserver to respond to ACME challenges
  • Webroot: needs your webserver to serve challenges from a known folder.

Webroot is better because it doesn't need to replace Nginx (to bind to port 80) to renew certificates.

In the following, we're setting up mydomain.com to be served from /var/www/mydomain, and challenges will be served from /var/www/letsencrypt.


Nginx snippets

First we create two snippets to avoid duplicating code in every virtual host configuration.

Create a file /etc/nginx/snippets/letsencrypt.conf containing:

location ^~ /.well-known/acme-challenge/ {
	default_type "text/plain";
	root /var/www/letsencrypt;
}

Create a file /etc/nginx/snippets/ssl.conf containing:

ssl_session_timeout 1d;
ssl_session_cache shared:SSL:50m;
ssl_session_tickets off;

ssl_protocols TLSv1.2;
ssl_ciphers EECDH+AESGCM:EECDH+AES;
ssl_ecdh_curve secp384r1;
ssl_prefer_server_ciphers on;

ssl_stapling on;
ssl_stapling_verify on;

add_header Strict-Transport-Security "max-age=15768000; includeSubdomains; preload";
add_header X-Frame-Options DENY;
add_header X-Content-Type-Options nosniff;

Nginx virtual hosts (HTTP-only)

We don't have a certificate yet at this point, so the domain is served only as HTTP.

Create a file /etc/nginx/sites-available/mydomain.conf containing:

server {
	listen 80 default_server;
	listen [::]:80 default_server ipv6only=on;
	server_name mydomain.com www.mydomain.com;

	include /etc/nginx/snippets/letsencrypt.conf;

	root /var/www/mydomain;
	index index.html;
	location / {
		try_files $uri $uri/ =404;
	}
}

Enable the site:

rm /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/default
ln -s /etc/nginx/sites-available/mydomain.conf /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/mydomain.conf

And reload Nginx:

sudo systemctl reload nginx

Note the line include /etc/nginx/snippets/letsencrypt.conf; that makes Nginx serve challenges for both http://www.mydomain.com/.well-known/acme-challenge/ and http://mydomain.com/.well-known/acme-challenge/.


Let's Encrypt client

Install the client:

sudo apt-get install letsencrypt

Create a folder for the challenges:

sudo mkdir -p /var/www/letsencrypt/.well-known/acme-challenge

And finally, get a certificate (don't forget to replace with your own email address):

letsencrypt certonly --webroot -w /var/www/letsencrypt -d www.domain.com -d domain.com --email MY@EMAIL.COM --agree-tos

It will save the files in /etc/letsencrypt/live/www.mydomain.com/.


Nginx virtual hosts (HTTPS-only)

Now that you have a certificate for the domain, switch to HTTPS by editing the file /etc/nginx/sites-available/mydomain.conf and replacing contents with:

server {
	listen 80 default_server;
	listen [::]:80 default_server ipv6only=on;
	server_name mydomain.com www.mydomain.com;
	
	include /etc/nginx/snippets/letsencrypt.conf;

	location / {
		return 301 https://www.mydomain.com$request_uri;
	}
}


server {
	server_name www.mydomain.com;
	listen 443 ssl http2 default_server;
	listen [::]:443 ssl http2 default_server ipv6only=on;
	
	ssl_certificate /etc/letsencrypt/live/www.mydomain.com/fullchain.pem;
	ssl_certificate_key /etc/letsencrypt/live/www.mydomain.com/privkey.pem;
	ssl_trusted_certificate /etc/letsencrypt/live/www.mydomain.com/fullchain.pem;
	include /etc/nginx/snippets/ssl.conf;
	
	root /var/www/mydomain.com;
	index index.html;
	location / {
		try_files $uri $uri/ =404;
	}
}


server {
	listen 443 ssl http2;
	listen [::]:443 ssl http2;
	server_name mydomain.com;

	ssl_certificate /etc/letsencrypt/live/www.mydomain.com/fullchain.pem;
	ssl_certificate_key /etc/letsencrypt/live/www.mydomain.com/privkey.pem;
	ssl_trusted_certificate /etc/letsencrypt/live/www.mydomain.com/fullchain.pem;
	include /etc/nginx/snippets/ssl.conf;

	location / {
		return 301 https://www.mydomain.com$request_uri;
	}
}

Then reload Nginx:

sudo systemctl reload nginx

Conclusion

You should now be able to see your website at https://www.mydomain.com. Congratulations 😃

You can test now also test that your domain has A+ SLL rating:

You can renew using letsencrypt renew: when called it will attempt to renew certificates expiring in less than 30 days, so you can put this command in cron to renew automatically.

If letsencrypt is useful to you, consider donating to letsencrypt or donating to the EFF.

@mazz
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mazz commented Apr 15, 2017



sudo ./configure --with-openssl=../openssl-1.1.0e --with-pcre=../pcre-8.40 --with-http_ssl_module --with-http_v2_module

  nginx path prefix: "/usr/local/nginx"
  nginx binary file: "/usr/local/nginx/sbin/nginx"
  nginx modules path: "/usr/local/nginx/modules"
  nginx configuration prefix: "/usr/local/nginx/conf"
  nginx configuration file: "/usr/local/nginx/conf/nginx.conf"
  nginx pid file: "/usr/local/nginx/logs/nginx.pid"
  nginx error log file: "/usr/local/nginx/logs/error.log"
  nginx http access log file: "/usr/local/nginx/logs/access.log"
  nginx http client request body temporary files: "client_body_temp"
  nginx http proxy temporary files: "proxy_temp"
  nginx http fastcgi temporary files: "fastcgi_temp"
  nginx http uwsgi temporary files: "uwsgi_temp"
  nginx http scgi temporary files: "scgi_temp"

server {
	listen 80 default_server;
	listen [::]:80 default_server ipv6only=on;
	server_name objectaaron.com www.objectaaron.com;

	include /usr/local/nginx/snippets/letsencrypt.conf;

	root /var/www/objectaaron.com;
	index index.html;
	location / {
		try_files $uri $uri/ =404;
	}
}

sudo chown maz:staff www
sudo chown maz:staff objectaaron.com
sudo chown maz:staff snippets
sudo chown maz:staff sites-available
sudo chown maz:staff sites-enabled

nginx.conf:

user maz staff;
...
http {
    include /usr/local/nginx/sites-enabled/*;
}

ln -s /usr/local/nginx/sites-available/objectaaron_com.conf /usr/local/nginx/sites-enabled/objectaaron_com.conf

./letsencrypt-auto certonly --webroot -w /var/www/letsencrypt --rsa-key-size 4096 --renew-by-default -d www.objectaaron.com -d objectaaron.com --email michaelkhanna@gmail.com --text --agree-tos --debug

~/src/git/letsencrypt (master ✔) ᐅ ./letsencrypt-auto certonly --webroot -w /var/www/letsencrypt --rsa-key-size 4096 --renew-by-default -d www.objectaaron.com -d objectaaron.com --email michaelkhanna@gmail.com --text --agree-tos --debug
Requesting root privileges to run certbot...
  /Users/maz/.local/share/letsencrypt/bin/letsencrypt certonly --webroot -w /var/www/letsencrypt --rsa-key-size 4096 --renew-by-default -d www.objectaaron.com -d objectaaron.com --email michaelkhanna@gmail.com --text --agree-tos --debug
Saving debug log to /var/log/letsencrypt/letsencrypt.log
Renewing an existing certificate
Performing the following challenges:
http-01 challenge for www.objectaaron.com
http-01 challenge for objectaaron.com
Using the webroot path /var/www/letsencrypt for all unmatched domains.
Waiting for verification...
Cleaning up challenges
Generating key (4096 bits): /etc/letsencrypt/keys/0001_key-certbot.pem
Creating CSR: /etc/letsencrypt/csr/0001_csr-certbot.pem

IMPORTANT NOTES:
 - Congratulations! Your certificate and chain have been saved at
   /etc/letsencrypt/live/www.objectaaron.com/fullchain.pem. Your cert
   will expire on 2017-07-14. To obtain a new or tweaked version of
   this certificate in the future, simply run letsencrypt-auto again.
   To non-interactively renew *all* of your certificates, run
   "letsencrypt-auto renew"
 - If you like Certbot, please consider supporting our work by:

   Donating to ISRG / Let's Encrypt:   https://letsencrypt.org/donate
   Donating to EFF:                    https://eff.org/donate-le

server {
	listen 80 default_server;
	listen [::]:80 default_server ipv6only=on;
	server_name objectaaron.com www.objectaaron.com;
	
	include /usr/local/nginx/snippets/letsencrypt.conf;

	location / {
		return 301 https://www.objectaaron.com$request_uri;
	}
}


server {
	server_name www.objectaaron.com;
	listen 443 ssl http2 default_server;
	listen [::]:443 ssl http2 default_server ipv6only=on;
	
	ssl_certificate /etc/letsencrypt/live/www.objectaaron.com/fullchain.pem;
	ssl_certificate_key /etc/letsencrypt/live/www.objectaaron.com/privkey.pem;
	ssl_trusted_certificate /etc/letsencrypt/live/www.objectaaron.com/fullchain.pem;
	include /usr/local/nginx/snippets/ssl.conf;
	
	root /var/www/objectaaron.com;
	index index.html;
	location / {
		try_files $uri $uri/ =404;
	}
}


server {
	listen 443 ssl http2;
	listen [::]:443 ssl http2;
	server_name objectaaron.com;

	ssl_certificate /etc/letsencrypt/live/www.objectaaron.com/fullchain.pem;
	ssl_certificate_key /etc/letsencrypt/live/www.objectaaron.com/privkey.pem;
	ssl_trusted_certificate /etc/letsencrypt/live/www.objectaaron.com/fullchain.pem;
	include /usr/local/nginx/snippets/ssl.conf;

	location / {
		return 301 https://www.objectaaron.com$request_uri;
	}
}

@mazz
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Author

mazz commented Apr 15, 2017

ensure
/var/www/letsencrypt/.well-known/acme-challenge

is owned by maz:staff

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