This is a tiny, auditable script that you can throw on your server to issue and renew Let's Encrypt certificates. Since it has to be run on your server and have access to your private Let's Encrypt account key, I tried to make it as tiny as possible (currently less than 200 lines). The only prerequisites are python and openssl.
PLEASE READ THE SOURCE CODE! YOU MUST TRUST IT WITH YOUR PRIVATE KEYS!
##Donate
If this script is useful to you, please donate to the EFF. I don't work there, but they do fantastic work.
If you already have a Let's Encrypt issued certificate and just want to renew, you should only have to do Steps 3 and 6.
You must have a public key registered with Let's Encrypt and sign your requests with the corresponding private key. If you don't understand what I just said, this script likely isn't for you! Please use the official Let's Encrypt client.
openssl genrsa 4096 > account.key
The ACME protocol (what Let's Encrypt uses) requires a CSR file to be submitted to it, even for renewals. You can use the same CSR for multiple renewals. NOTE: you can't use your account private key as your domain private key!
#generate a domain private key (if you haven't already)
openssl genrsa 4096 > domain.key
#for a single domain
openssl req -new -sha256 -key domain.key -subj "/CN=yoursite.com" > domain.csr
#for multiple domains (use this one if you want both www.yoursite.com and yoursite.com)
openssl req -new -sha256 -key domain.key -subj "/" -reqexts SAN -config <(cat /etc/ssl/openssl.cnf <(printf "[SAN]\nsubjectAltName=DNS:yoursite.com,DNS:www.yoursite.com")) > domain.csr
You must prove you own the domains you want a certificate for, so Let's Encrypt requires you host some files on them. This script will generate and write those files in the folder you specify, so all you need to do is make sure that this folder is served under the ".well-known/acme-challenge/" url path. NOTE: This must be on port 80 (not port 443).
#make some challenge folder (modify to suit your needs)
mkdir -p /var/www/challenges/
#example for nginx
server {
listen 80;
server_name yoursite.com www.yoursite.com;
location /.well-known/acme-challenge/ {
alias /var/www/challenges/;
try_files $uri =404;
}
...the rest of your config
}Now that you have setup your server and generated all the needed files, run this script on your server with the permissions needed to write to the above folder and read your private account key and CSR.
#run the script on your server
python acme_tiny.py --account-key ./account.key --csr ./domain.csr --acme-dir /var/www/challenges/ > ./signed.crt
The signed https certificate that is output by this script can be used along with your private key to run an https server. You need to include them in the https settings in your web server's configuration. Here's an example on how to configure an nginx server:
#NOTE: For nginx, you need to append the Let's Encrypt intermediate cert to your cert
wget -O - https://letsencrypt.org/certs/lets-encrypt-x1-cross-signed.pem > intermediate.pem
cat signed.crt intermediate.pem > chained.pem
server {
listen 443;
server_name yoursite.com, www.yoursite.com;
ssl on;
ssl_certificate /path/to/chained.pem;
ssl_certificate_key /path/to/domain.key;
ssl_session_timeout 5m;
ssl_protocols TLSv1 TLSv1.1 TLSv1.2;
ssl_ciphers ECDHE-RSA-AES256-GCM-SHA384:ECDHE-RSA-AES128-GCM-SHA256:DHE-RSA-AES256-GCM-SHA384:ECDHE-RSA-AES256-SHA384:ECDHE-RSA-AES128-SHA256:ECDHE-RSA-AES256-SHA:ECDHE-RSA-AES128-SHA:DHE-RSA-AES256-SHA:DHE-RSA-AES128-SHA;
ssl_session_cache shared:SSL:50m;
ssl_dhparam /path/to/server.dhparam;
ssl_prefer_server_ciphers on;
...the rest of your config
}
server {
listen 80;
server_name yoursite.com, www.yoursite.com;
location /.well-known/acme-challenge/ {
alias /var/www/challenges/;
try_files $uri =404;
}
...the rest of your config
}Congrats! Your website is now using https! Unfortunately, Let's Encrypt certificates only last for 90 days, so you need to renew them often. No worries! It's automated! Just make a bash script and add it to your crontab (see below for example script).
Example of a renew_cert.sh:
#!/usr/bin/sh
python /path/to/acme_tiny.py --account-key /path/to/account.key --csr /path/to/domain.csr --acme-dir /var/www/challenges/ > /tmp/signed.crt || exit
wget -O - https://letsencrypt.org/certs/lets-encrypt-x1-cross-signed.pem > intermediate.pem
cat /tmp/signed.crt intermediate.pem > /path/to/chained.pem
service nginx reload#example line in your crontab (runs once per month)
0 0 1 * * /path/to/renew_cert.sh 2>> /var/log/acme_tiny.log
The biggest problem you'll likely come across while setting up and running this
script is permissions. You want to limit access to your account private key and
challenge web folder as much as possible. I'd recommend creating a user
specifically for handling this script, the account private key, and the
challenge folder. Then add the ability for that user to write to your installed
certificate file (e.g. /path/to/chained.pem) and reload your webserver. That
way, the cron script will do its thing, overwrite your old certificate, and
reload your webserver without having permission to do anything else.
BE SURE TO:
- Backup your account private key (e.g.
account.key) - Don't allow this script to be able to read your domain private key!
- Don't allow this script to be run as root!
This project has a very, very limited scope and codebase. I'm happy to receive bug reports and pull requests, but please don't add any new features. This script must stay under 200 lines of code to ensure it can be easily audited by anyone who wants to run it.
If you want to add features for your own setup to make things easier for you, please do! It's open source, so feel free to fork it and modify as necessary.