Creating SSL Certificates

Our guide to creating SSL Certificates

Step 1: Installing Certbot

First we need to install certbot

Nginx

sudo apt install -y python3-certbot-nginx

Apache

sudo apt install -y python3-certbot-apache

Other

sudo apt install -y certbot

Step 2: Creating the Certificate

Then we are going to create the certificate

Step 1: Stopping the webserver

IMPORTANT

Make sure you are not running anything on port 80 if you are running anything on port 80 certbot will not work. You can check this by running: sudo lsof -i :80

Nginx

sudo systemctl stop nginx

Apache

sudo systemctl stop apache2

Step 2: Creating the certificate

IMPORTANT

Make sure to replace example.com with the domain name you want to use.

Nginx

certbot certonly --nginx -d example.com

Apache

certbot certonly --apache -d example.com

Other

certbot certonly --standalone -d example.com

Renewing

And now you are done. The certificates will however need to be renewed often. You can do this manualy by running certbot renew or you can setup a cronjob to do it for you:

First open your crontab: crontab -e

Then you set this cronjob in it to do the renewing for you every day at 23:00

IMPORTANT

Make sure to replace nginx with the webserver that you are using.

0 23 * * * certbot renew --quiet --deploy-hook 'systemctl restart nginx'