README.md

The LinuxServer.io team brings you another container release featuring :-

• regular and timely application updates
• easy user mappings (PGID, PUID)
• custom base image with s6 overlay
• weekly base OS updates with common layers across the entire LinuxServer.io ecosystem to minimise space usage, down time and bandwidth
• regular security updates

Find us at:

• Blog - all the things you can do with our containers including How-To guides, opinions and much more!
• Discord - realtime support / chat with the community and the team.
• Discourse - post on our community forum.
• Fleet - an online web interface which displays all of our maintained images.
• GitHub - view the source for all of our repositories.
• Open Collective - please consider helping us by either donating or contributing to our budget

linuxserver/letsencrypt

Letsencrypt sets up an Nginx webserver and reverse proxy with php support and a built-in letsencrypt client that automates free SSL server certificate generation and renewal processes. It also contains fail2ban for intrusion prevention.

Supported Architectures

Our images support multiple architectures such as x86-64, arm64 and armhf. We utilise the docker manifest for multi-platform awareness. More information is available from docker here and our announcement here.

Simply pulling linuxserver/letsencrypt should retrieve the correct image for your arch, but you can also pull specific arch images via tags.

The architectures supported by this image are:

Architecture	Tag
x86-64	amd64-latest
arm64	arm64v8-latest
armhf	arm32v7-latest

Usage

Here are some example snippets to help you get started creating a container.

docker

docker create \
  --name=letsencrypt \
  --cap-add=NET_ADMIN \
  -e PUID=1000 \
  -e PGID=1000 \
  -e TZ=Europe/London \
  -e URL=yourdomain.url \
  -e SUBDOMAINS=www, \
  -e VALIDATION=http \
  -e DNSPLUGIN=cloudflare `#optional` \
  -e DUCKDNSTOKEN=<token> `#optional` \
  -e EMAIL=<e-mail> `#optional` \
  -e DHLEVEL=2048 `#optional` \
  -e ONLY_SUBDOMAINS=false `#optional` \
  -e EXTRA_DOMAINS=<extradomains> `#optional` \
  -e STAGING=false `#optional` \
  -p 443:443 \
  -p 80:80 `#optional` \
  -v </path/to/appdata/config>:/config \
  --restart unless-stopped \
  linuxserver/letsencrypt

docker-compose

Compatible with docker-compose v2 schemas.

---
version: "2"
services:
  letsencrypt:
    image: linuxserver/letsencrypt
    container_name: letsencrypt
    cap_add:
      - NET_ADMIN
    environment:
      - PUID=1000
      - PGID=1000
      - TZ=Europe/London
      - URL=yourdomain.url
      - SUBDOMAINS=www,
      - VALIDATION=http
      - DNSPLUGIN=cloudflare #optional
      - DUCKDNSTOKEN=<token> #optional
      - EMAIL=<e-mail> #optional
      - DHLEVEL=2048 #optional
      - ONLY_SUBDOMAINS=false #optional
      - EXTRA_DOMAINS=<extradomains> #optional
      - STAGING=false #optional
    volumes:
      - </path/to/appdata/config>:/config
    ports:
      - 443:443
      - 80:80 #optional
    restart: unless-stopped

Parameters

Container images are configured using parameters passed at runtime (such as those above). These parameters are separated by a colon and indicate <external>:<internal> respectively. For example, -p 8080:80 would expose port 80 from inside the container to be accessible from the host's IP on port 8080 outside the container.

Parameter	Function
-p 443	Https port
-p 80	Http port (required for http validation only)
-e PUID=1000	for UserID - see below for explanation
-e PGID=1000	for GroupID - see below for explanation
-e TZ=Europe/London	Specify a timezone to use EG Europe/London.
-e URL=yourdomain.url	Top url you have control over (customdomain.com if you own it, or customsubdomain.ddnsprovider.com if dynamic dns).
-e SUBDOMAINS=www,	Subdomains you'd like the cert to cover (comma separated, no spaces) ie. www,ftp,cloud. For a wildcard cert, set this exactly to wildcard (wildcard cert is available via dns and duckdns validation only)
-e VALIDATION=http	Letsencrypt validation method to use, options are http, dns or duckdns (dns method also requires DNSPLUGIN variable set) (duckdns method requires DUCKDNSTOKEN variable set, and the SUBDOMAINS variable must be either empty or set to wildcard).
-e DNSPLUGIN=cloudflare	Required if VALIDATION is set to dns. Options are aliyun, cloudflare, cloudxns, cpanel, digitalocean, dnsimple, dnsmadeeasy, domeneshop, gandi, google, inwx, linode, luadns, nsone, ovh, rfc2136, route53 and transip. Also need to enter the credentials into the corresponding ini (or json for some plugins) file under /config/dns-conf.
-e DUCKDNSTOKEN=<token>	Required if VALIDATION is set to duckdns. Retrieve your token from https://www.duckdns.org
-e EMAIL=<e-mail>	Optional e-mail address used for cert expiration notifications.
-e DHLEVEL=2048	Dhparams bit value (default=2048, can be set to 1024 or 4096).
-e ONLY_SUBDOMAINS=false	If you wish to get certs only for certain subdomains, but not the main domain (main domain may be hosted on another machine and cannot be validated), set this to true
-e EXTRA_DOMAINS=<extradomains>	Additional fully qualified domain names (comma separated, no spaces) ie. extradomain.com,subdomain.anotherdomain.org
-e STAGING=false	Set to true to retrieve certs in staging mode. Rate limits will be much higher, but the resulting cert will not pass the browser's security test. Only to be used for testing purposes.
-v /config	All the config files including the webroot reside here.

Environment variables from files (Docker secrets)

You can set any environment variable from a file by using a special prepend FILE__.

As an example:

-e FILE__PASSWORD=/run/secrets/mysecretpassword

Will set the environment variable PASSWORD based on the contents of the /run/secrets/mysecretpassword file.

User / Group Identifiers

When using volumes (-v flags) permissions issues can arise between the host OS and the container, we avoid this issue by allowing you to specify the user PUID and group PGID.

Ensure any volume directories on the host are owned by the same user you specify and any permissions issues will vanish like magic.

In this instance PUID=1000 and PGID=1000, to find yours use id user as below:

  $ id username
    uid=1000(dockeruser) gid=1000(dockergroup) groups=1000(dockergroup)

 

Application Setup

Validation and initial setup

• Before running this container, make sure that the url and subdomains are properly forwarded to this container's host, and that port 443 (and/or 80) is not being used by another service on the host (NAS gui, another webserver, etc.).
• For http validation, port 80 on the internet side of the router should be forwarded to this container's port 80
• For dns validation, make sure to enter your credentials into the corresponding ini (or json for some plugins) file under /config/dns-conf
  • Cloudflare provides free accounts for managing dns and is very easy to use with this image. Make sure that it is set up for "dns only" instead of "dns + proxy"
  • Google dns plugin is meant to be used with "Google Cloud DNS", a paid enterprise product, and not for "Google Domains DNS"
• For duckdns validation, either leave the SUBDOMAINS variable empty or set it to wildcard, and set the DUCKDNSTOKEN variable with your duckdns token. Due to a limitation of duckdns, the resulting cert will only cover either main subdomain (ie. yoursubdomain.duckdns.org), or sub-subdomains (ie. *.yoursubdomain.duckdns.org), but will not both at the same time. You can use our duckdns image to update your IP on duckdns.org.
• --cap-add=NET_ADMIN is required for fail2ban to modify iptables
• If you need a dynamic dns provider, you can use the free provider duckdns.org where the URL will be yoursubdomain.duckdns.org and the SUBDOMAINS can be www,ftp,cloud with http validation, or wildcard with dns validation.
• After setup, navigate to https://yourdomain.url to access the default homepage (http access through port 80 is disabled by default, you can enable it by editing the default site config at /config/nginx/site-confs/default).
• Certs are checked nightly and if expiration is within 30 days, renewal is attempted. If your cert is about to expire in less than 30 days, check the logs under /config/log/letsencrypt to see why the renewals have been failing. It is recommended to input your e-mail in docker parameters so you receive expiration notices from letsencrypt in those circumstances.

Security and password protection

• The container detects changes to url and subdomains, revokes existing certs and generates new ones during start. It also detects changes to the DHLEVEL parameter and replaces the dhparams file.
• If you'd like to password protect your sites, you can use htpasswd. Run the following command on your host to generate the htpasswd file docker exec -it letsencrypt htpasswd -c /config/nginx/.htpasswd <username>
• You can add multiple user:pass to .htpasswd. For the first user, use the above command, for others, use the above command without the -c flag, as it will force deletion of the existing .htpasswd and creation of a new one
• You can also use ldap auth for security and access control. A sample, user configurable ldap.conf is provided, and it requires the separate image linuxserver/ldap-auth to communicate with an ldap server.

Site config and reverse proxy

• The default site config resides at /config/nginx/site-confs/default. Feel free to modify this file, and you can add other conf files to this directory. However, if you delete the default file, a new default will be created on container start.
• Preset reverse proxy config files are added for popular apps. See the README.md file under /config/nginx/proxy_confs for instructions on how to enable them. The preset confs reside in and get imported from this repo.
• If you wish to hide your site from search engine crawlers, you may find it useful to add this configuration line to your site config, within the server block, above the line where ssl.conf is included add_header X-Robots-Tag "noindex, nofollow, nosnippet, noarchive"; This will ask Google et al not to index and list your site. Be careful with this, as you will eventually be de-listed if you leave this line in on a site you wish to be present on search engines

Using certs in other containers

• This container includes auto-generated pfx and private-fullchain-bundle pem certs that are needed by other apps like Emby and Znc.
  • To use these certs in other containers, do either of the following:
  1. (Easier) Mount the letsencrypt config folder in other containers (ie. -v /path-to-le-config:/le-ssl) and in the other containers, use the cert location /le-ssl/keys/letsencrypt/
  2. (More secure) Mount the letsencrypt folder etc/letsencrypt that resides under /config in other containers (ie. -v /path-to-le-config/etc/letsencrypt:/le-ssl) and in the other containers, use the cert location /le-ssl/live/<your.domain.url>/ (This is more secure because the first method shares the entire letsencrypt config folder with other containers, including the www files, whereas the second method only shares the ssl certs)
  • These certs include:
  1. cert.pem, chain.pem, fullchain.pem and privkey.pem, which are generated by letsencrypt and used by nginx and various other apps
  2. privkey.pfx, a format supported by Microsoft and commonly used by dotnet apps such as Emby Server (no password)
  3. priv-fullchain-bundle.pem, a pem cert that bundles the private key and the fullchain, used by apps like ZNC

Using fail2ban

• This container includes fail2ban set up with 3 jails by default:
  1. nginx-http-auth
  2. nginx-badbots
  3. nginx-botsearch
• To enable or disable other jails, modify the file /config/fail2ban/jail.local
• To modify filters and actions, instead of editing the .conf files, create .local files with the same name and edit those because .conf files get overwritten when the actions and filters are updated. .local files will append whatever's in the .conf files (ie. nginx-http-auth.conf --> nginx-http-auth.local)
• You can check which jails are active via docker exec -it letsencrypt fail2ban-client status
• You can check the status of a specific jail via docker exec -it letsencrypt fail2ban-client status <jail name>
• You can unban an IP via docker exec -it letsencrypt fail2ban-client set <jail name> unbanip <IP>
• A list of commands can be found here: https://www.fail2ban.org/wiki/index.php/Commands

Support Info

• Shell access whilst the container is running: docker exec -it letsencrypt /bin/bash
• To monitor the logs of the container in realtime: docker logs -f letsencrypt
• container version number
  • docker inspect -f '{{ index .Config.Labels "build_version" }}' letsencrypt
• image version number
  • docker inspect -f '{{ index .Config.Labels "build_version" }}' linuxserver/letsencrypt

Updating Info

Most of our images are static, versioned, and require an image update and container recreation to update the app inside. With some exceptions (ie. nextcloud, plex), we do not recommend or support updating apps inside the container. Please consult the Application Setup section above to see if it is recommended for the image.

Below are the instructions for updating containers:

Via Docker Run/Create

• Update the image: docker pull linuxserver/letsencrypt
• Stop the running container: docker stop letsencrypt
• Delete the container: docker rm letsencrypt
• Recreate a new container with the same docker create parameters as instructed above (if mapped correctly to a host folder, your /config folder and settings will be preserved)
• Start the new container: docker start letsencrypt
• You can also remove the old dangling images: docker image prune

Via Docker Compose

• Update all images: docker-compose pull
  • or update a single image: docker-compose pull letsencrypt
• Let compose update all containers as necessary: docker-compose up -d
  • or update a single container: docker-compose up -d letsencrypt
• You can also remove the old dangling images: docker image prune

Via Watchtower auto-updater (especially useful if you don't remember the original parameters)

• Pull the latest image at its tag and replace it with the same env variables in one run:

  docker run --rm \
  -v /var/run/docker.sock:/var/run/docker.sock \
  containrrr/watchtower \
  --run-once letsencrypt
  

Note: We do not endorse the use of Watchtower as a solution to automated updates of existing Docker containers. In fact we generally discourage automated updates. However, this is a useful tool for one-time manual updates of containers where you have forgotten the original parameters. In the long term, we highly recommend using Docker Compose.

• You can also remove the old dangling images: docker image prune

Building locally

If you want to make local modifications to these images for development purposes or just to customize the logic:

git clone https://github.com/linuxserver/docker-letsencrypt.git
cd docker-letsencrypt
docker build \
  --no-cache \
  --pull \
  -t linuxserver/letsencrypt:latest .

The ARM variants can be built on x86_64 hardware using multiarch/qemu-user-static

docker run --rm --privileged multiarch/qemu-user-static:register --reset

Once registered you can define the dockerfile to use with -f Dockerfile.aarch64.

Versions

• 06.03.20: - Implement cert renewal attempt during container start (only if the cert is already expired or will expire within the next 24 hours, otherwise it will be attempted at 2:08am).
• 05.03.20: - Use port and proto upstream variables for ldap and default sample confs.
• 24.02.20: - Remove world/group read permissions in dns-conf.
• 23.02.20: - Add aliyun dns validation plugin.
• 28.01.20: - Deprecate tls-sni validation method, remove from docs.
• 27.01.20: - Add support for cpanel dns validation.
• 10.01.20: - Add support for domeneshop dns validation.
• 07.01.20: - Update ciphers from Mozilla ssl-config recommendations.
• 01.01.20: - Add support for gandi dns validation.
• 31.12.19: - GeoIP2 databases now require personal license keys to download. Auto download is disabled and log message is added.
• 19.12.19: - Rebasing to alpine 3.11.
• 19.12.19: - Increase large_client_header_buffers in nginx.conf to prevent 414 errors.
• 18.12.19: - Add php7-imap and php7-pecl-apcu.
• 11.12.19: - Fix Google Cloud DNS to use .json file for authentication.
• 20.11.19: - Fix cryptography version mismatch due to pip issue.
• 17.11.19: - Add php7-pdo_odbc.
• 17.11.19: - Add transip dns validation plugin.
• 27.10.19: - Turn off lua resty core to get rid of error message in the log (existing users will have to delete /config/nginx/nginx.conf and restart the container).
• 26.10.19: - Add new package for stream-geoip2, remove geoip2 module patch.
• 24.10.19: - Add php7-pecl-imagick.
• 23.10.19: - Update Host header in proxy.conf to fix CSRF issues.
• 12.10.19: - Add linode dns validation plugin.
• 23.09.19: - Move GeoIP2 db to /config to make it persistent.
• 14.08.19: - Add inwx dns validation plugin.
• 06.08.19: - Add php7-ftp.
• 04.08.19: - Add php7-bcmath, php7-pear, php7-xmlrpc.
• 02.08.19: - Add php7-ldap, remove geoip v1(deprecated).
• 01.08.19: - Mark https redirect block as default_server (effective only for new installs).
• 31.07.19: - Create GeoIP2 databse (libmaxminddb) during container start if it doesn't exist.
• 30.07.19: - Support main domain via duckdns validation.
• 29.07.19: - Enable http to https redirect by default (effective only for new installs).
• 01.07.19: - Patch geoip2 module until upstream is fixed.
• 30.06.19: - Add geoip2 module.
• 28.06.19: - Rebasing to alpine 3.10.
• 19.06.19: - Set resolver to docker dns in ssl.conf.
• 29.05.19: - Compensate for changes to the reverse-proxy-confs repo.
• 26.05.19: - Remove botocore/urllib patch.
• 08.05.19: - Remove default.conf when nginx is upgraded in downstream image.
• 30.04.19: - Add php-redis.
• 12.04.19: - Rebase aarch64 image to 3.9.
• 25.03.19: - Rebase aarch64 image back to 3.8 due to python issues (specifically with fail2ban), switch packages to python 3 on amd64 and armhf, clean up pip/python cache to shrink image size.
• 23.03.19: - Switching to new Base images, shift to arm32v7 tag.
• 10.03.19: - Add TLSv1.3 to ssl.conf.
• 02.03.19: - Add php intl and posix modules.
• 27.02.19: - Add gnupg package.
• 22.02.19: - Rebase to alpine 3.9.
• 03.02.19: - Removed memcached due to seccomp errors. Let us know if you need to re-enable memcached.
• 28.01.19: - Add pipeline logic and multi arch.
• 21.01.19: - Remove client_body_max from proxy.conf (existing users need to manually update).
• 09.01.19: - Remove tls v1 and v1.1 from default ssl.conf, update ciphers (existing users need to manually update).
• 30.12.18: - Fix bundle key generation.
• 19.12.18: - Add ipv6 and http/2 support to default site config.
• 08.12.18: - Had to remove cert renewal during container start due to certbot's new undocumented feature of up to 8 minute random delay.
• 03.12.18: - Fix silly bug resetting the duckdns token.
• 02.12.18: - Add dns validation support for ovh.
• 20.11.18: - Externalize reverse proxy confs to separate github repo linuxserver/reverse-proxy-confs, update baseimage packages during build
• 19.11.18: - Add php opcache package.
• 12.11.18: - Add support for duckdns wildcard certs via dns validation
• 31.10.18: - Add various preset proxy confs and fix others (thanks @nemchik and @hijxf)
• 02.10.18: - Fix fail2ban instructions and logrotate conf
• 11.09.18: - Add various preset proxy confs and fix others (thanks @nemchik and @LeoVerto)
• 04.09.18: - Linting fixes.
• 30.08.18: - Add support for ldap auth, add proxy confs for bazarr, couchpotato, headphones, lidarr and plex subfolder (thanks @nemchik and @jedahan)
• 21.08.18: - Rebase to alpine 3.8, add info on search engine de-listing
• 08.08.18: - Add subdomain proxy conf for plex, update emby proxy confs
• 25.07.18: - Add subdomain proxy conf for syncthing
• 23.07.18: - Remove backwards compatibility and set default validation method to http. Update portainer proxy config to fix websockets. Add unifi proxy conf.
• 31.05.18: - Update ssl.conf and proxy.conf for tighter security (thanks @nemchik)
• 30.05.18: - Add reverse proxy configs for jackett, monitorr, nzbget, nzbhydra, organizr, portainer and transmission (thanks @nemchik)
• 18.05.18: - Add more info on certs and unraid reverse proxy config
• 11.05.18: - Add php pgsql support
• 24.04.18: - Auto generate a private key + fullchain bundle pem that is needed by certain apps
• 20.04.18: - Add standardized optional reverse proxy conf files
• 19.04.18: - Bind memcached to localhost only, add php7-sqlite3
• 08.04.18: - Fix renewal hooks
• 29.03.18: - Create pfx cert after renewal for dns validation (previous version only created it for http and tls, an oversight)
• 29.03.18: - Fix staging for v2 api
• 13.03.18: - Support for wildcard cert with dns validation added. Switched to v2 api for ACME.
• 21.02.18: - Reduce shellcheck directives by renaming secondary variables
• 20.02.18: - Sanitize variables, increase log verbosity
• 01.02.18: - Big changes. VALIDATION parameter added for choosing letsencrypt validation methods, including dns through official plugins. HTTPVAL is deprecated. STAGING parameter added for testing. Backwards compatibility for the short term. Since tls-sni is disabled by letsencrypt, most users will have to change their settings and adopt the new parameters within the next 90 days. Reorganized the nginx default config, split ssl settings into new ssl.conf
• 13.01.18: - Re-enable ipv6 due to update to fail2ban 0.10.1. Existing users can enable ipv6 by deleting /config/fail2ban/action.d/iptables-common.local and restarting the container after updating the image
• 11.01.18: - Halt the container if validation fails instead of a stop (so restart=always doesn't get users throttled with letsencrypt)
• 10.01.18: - Add option for http validation on port 80
• 05.01.18: - Rebase to alpine 3.7
• 04.11.17: - Add php7 soap module
• 31.10.17: - Add php7 exif and xmlreader modules
• 25.09.17: - Manage fail2ban via s6
• 24.09.17: - Add memcached service
• 01.09.17: - --privileged is no longer required as long as --cap-add=NET_ADMIN is added, instructions modified accordingly, disabled fail2ban ipv6 actions due to requiring access to host kernel modules
• 31.08.17: - Add php7-phar
• 14.07.17: - Enable modules dynamically in nginx.conf
• 06.07.17: - Add support for multiple domains (thanks @oznu)
• 22.06.17: - Add various nginx modules and enable all modules in the default nginx.conf
• 16.06.17: - Update deprecated certbot option for https validation, make e-mail entry optional, update readme
• 05.06.17: - Add php7-bz2
• 27.05.17: - Rebase to alpine 3.6.
• 03.05.17: - Fix log permissions.
• 18.04.17: - Add php7-sockets, update fail2ban filter and action defaults
• 27.02.17: - Add php7-dom, php7-iconv and php7-pdo_sqlite
• 21.02.17: - Add php7-xml
• 10.02.17: - Switch to alpine 3.5 base and php7, add php zlib module and all nginx modules
• 13.01.17: - Add php5-ctype and php5-openssl
• 04.01.17: - Add php5-mysqli and php5-pdo_mysql
• 22.11.16: - Add gd and mcrypt packages
• 21.11.16: - Add curl package
• 07.11.16: - Initial Release