Does your website need an SSL certificate?

Yes off course! Because it encrypts the website’s sensitive information sends it safely over the Internet.

Luckily, ISPConfig allows installing the Let’s Encrypt Free SSL on domains.

At Bobcares, we often get requests from our customers to install ISPConfig Let’s Encrypt as part of our Server Management Services

Today, we’ll see how our Support Engineers to install ISPConfig Let’s Encrypt and fix related errors.

How we use Let’s Encrypt on an ISPConfig 3.0 server

Now, let’s see how our Support Engineers install SSL in ISPConfig server.

1. Initially, we install Git install in CentOS/RedHat as follows.

yum install git

2. To clone the Git repository, we switch to the folder where the want to install Certbot files.

We upload our Certbot files to the server. And move to the Certbot folder.

cd Certbot

3. We upload our master.zip file and extract the files with the following command.

unzip master.zip
mv certbot-master Certbot
cd Certbot

4. Next, we request a certificate for the website.

./certbot-auto certonly -w /var/www/domaion.com/web -d domain.com -d www.domain.com -d sub.domain.com

when it is finished, we’ll get an interface that asks to validate the domain, we choose the ‘Apache Web Server’.

5. After that, we configure ISPConfig to use the certificate.

6. Then, we go to the SSL tab to copy the obtained certificates and keys to these fields.

We copy the file content present in the Let’s Encrypt folder for the domain.

1.  SSL Key:- The privkey.pem file. Copy and paste the content into “SSL Key” field.
2. An SSL Certificate:- The cert.pem file. Copy and paste the content into “SSL Certificate” field.
3. SSL Bundle:- The chain.pem file. Copy and paste the content into “SSL Bundle” field.

7. Finally, we select Save Certificate for SSL Action.

That’s it.

How we fixed error while installing ISPConfig Let’s Encrypt

From our experience in managing servers, we’ve seen customers often facing problems while installing SSL.

Now let’s see how our Support Engineers fixed the top errors.

Problem with ISPConfig Let’s Encrypt

Recently, one of our customers had a problem with SSL on ISPConfig. He had ISPConfig on Ubuntu 16.04 with Nginx. It was working fine until a recent update to ISPConfig 3.1.13. However, it seems like Let’s Encrypt couldn’t enable on websites.

On checking, our Support Engineers found that the error was occurred due to the problem with old Let’s Encrypt.

So, we used Cerbot instead of Let’s Encrypt which solved the problem and we executed the below commands.

apt update
apt install software-properties-common
apt-repository ppa:certbot/certbot
apt update
apt upgrade -y
apt remove letsencrypt -y
apt install python-certbot-nginx -y

Firewall

Many customers facing errors after installing Let’s Encrypt on their domains. Because it didn’t work as they expect. Sometimes, the SSL option stayed as disabled state after enabling SSL.

Usually, this happens when the server is placed behind a NAT firewall. Then, the website becomes inaccessible and firewall setting affects the working of SSL on the ISPConfig server.

Then, our Support Engineers suggested that customers to modify the server firewall and unblock the IP of Let’s Encrypt server.

[Having difficulty in installing ISPConfig Letsencrypt? We’ll fix it for you.] 

Conclusion

Sometimes, ISPconfig Let’s Encrypt allows installing free SSL on the server which helps to encrypt the website’s sensitive data. Today, we saw how our Support Engineers setup SSL and fix related errors.