Generally, installing from source (see section `Source Installation from Git`) leads to a better experience using Certbot and Let's Encrypt, especially if you're using an older OS release.
The variable `certbot_install_from_source` controls whether to install Certbot from Git or package management. The latter is the default, so the variable defaults to `no`.
By default, this role configures a cron job to run under the provided user account at the given hour and minute, every day. The defaults run `certbot renew` (or `certbot-auto renew`) via cron every day at 03:30:00 by the user you use in your Ansible playbook. It's preferred that you set a custom user/hour/minute so the renewal is during a low-traffic period and done by a non-root user account.
Currently there is one built-in method for generating new certificates using this role: `standalone`. Other methods (e.g. using nginx or apache and a webroot) may be added in the future.
**For a complete example**: see the fully functional test playbook in [tests/test-standalone-nginx-aws.yml](tests/test-standalone-nginx-aws.yml).
certbot_create_if_missing: false
certbot_create_method: standalone
Set `certbot_create_if_missing` to `yes` or `True` to let this role generate certs. Set the method used for generating certs with the `certbot_create_method` variable—current allowed values include: `standalone`.
certbot_admin_email: email@example.com
The email address used to agree to Let's Encrypt's TOS and subscribe to cert-related notifications. This should be customized and set to an email address that you or your organization regularly monitors.
certbot_certs: []
# - email: janedoe@example.com
# domains:
# - example1.com
# - example2.com
# - domains:
# - example3.com
A list of domains (and other data) for which certs should be generated. You can add an `email` key to any list item to override the `certbot_admin_email`.
The `certbot_create_command` defines the command used to generate the cert.
#### Standalone Certificate Generation
certbot_create_standalone_stop_services:
- nginx
Services that should be stopped while `certbot` runs it's own standalone server on ports 80 and 443. If you're running Apache, set this to `apache2` (Ubuntu), or `httpd` (RHEL), or if you have Nginx on port 443 and something else on port 80 (e.g. Varnish, a Java app, or something else), add it to the list so it is stopped when the certificate is generated.
These services will only be stopped the first time a new cert is generated.
You can install Certbot from it's Git source repository if desired. This might be useful in several cases, but especially when older distributions don't have Certbot packages available (e.g. CentOS <7,Ubuntu<16.10andDebian<8).
Certbot Git repository options. To install from source, set `certbot_install_from_source` to `yes`. This clones the configured `certbot_repo`, respecting the `certbot_version` setting. If `certbot_keep_updated` is set to `yes`, the repository is updated every time this role runs.
certbot_dir: /opt/certbot
The directory inside which Certbot will be cloned.
Let's Encrypt supports [generating wildcard certificates](https://community.letsencrypt.org/t/acme-v2-and-wildcard-certificate-support-is-live/55579), but the process for generating and using them is slightly more involved. See comments in [this pull request](https://github.com/geerlingguy/ansible-role-certbot/pull/60#issuecomment-423919284) for an example of how to use this role to maintain wildcard certs.
Michael Porter also has a walkthrough of [Creating A Let’s Encrypt Wildcard Cert With Ansible](https://www.michaelpporter.com/2018/09/creating-a-wildcard-cert-with-ansible/), specifically with Cloudflare.
_Note: You can have this role automatically generate certificates; see the "Automatic Certificate Generation" documentation above._
You can manually create certificates using the `certbot` (or `certbot-auto`) script (use `letsencrypt` on Ubuntu 16.04, or use `/opt/certbot/certbot-auto` if installing from source/Git. Here are some example commands to configure certificates with Certbot:
If you want to fully automate the process of adding a new certificate, but don't want to use this role's built in functionality, you can do so using the command line options to register, accept the terms of service, and then generate a cert using the standalone server:
1. Make sure any services listening on ports 80 and 443 (Apache, Nginx, Varnish, etc.) are stopped.
2. Register with something like `certbot register --agree-tos --email [your-email@example.com]`
- Note: You won't need to do this step in the future, when generating additional certs on the same server.
3. Generate a cert for a domain whose DNS points to this server: `certbot certonly --noninteractive --standalone -d example.com -d www.example.com`
4. Re-start whatever was listening on ports 80 and 443 before.
5. Update your webserver's virtualhost TLS configuration to point at the new certificate (`fullchain.pem`) and private key (`privkey.pem`) Certbot just generated for the domain you passed in the `certbot` command.
6. Reload or restart your webserver so it uses the new HTTPS virtualhost configuration.
