Certbot Ubuntu 18.04 Nginx


Certbot Ubuntu 18.04 Nginx

Introduction to Certbot in Ubuntu 18.04

Certbot, formerly known as Let’s Encrypt, is an open-source certificate authority (CA) managed by the Internet Security Research Group (ISRG). The purpose of Certbot is to help website owners secure their websites by issuing and managing digital certificates. Certbot is available for Ubuntu 18.04 and serves as an easy-to-use GUI for basic secure web server configuration.

A digital certificate, also known as a public key certificate, is a term used in cryptography to refer to a type of digital document used to prove the identity of the owner. A digital certificate usually contains information such as the name, address, email address, public key, and other information. Certbot enables website owners to quickly and easily generate free digital certificates, which can then be used to secure their servers.

Installing and Configuring Certbot in Ubuntu 18.04

To install and configure Certbot in Ubuntu 18.04, first, update the apt-get package manager and install Certbot using the following commands:

sudo apt-get update            sudo apt-get install certbot

Once Certbot is installed, you will need to run the command to obtain a free certificate:

sudo certbot --nginx

The Certbot utility will then prompt you for the domain names for which you would like to obtain a certificate. Enter the domain name (e.g. example.com) for which you would like to obtain a certificate and follow the on-screen instructions. Once you have entered the necessary information, the Certbot utility will generate your certificate and store it in the “/etc/letsencrypt/live” directory.

Certbot also includes a utility to renew certificates, which will be necessary when the certificates that were issued have expired. To renew a certificate, use the following command:

sudo certbot renew

Configuring Nginx to Use Certbot

Now that a certificate has been obtained, Nginx must be configured to use it. To configure Nginx, open the Nginx configuration file by running the following command:

sudo nano /etc/nginx/sites-available/default

Navigate to the server {} block and replace the existing contents with the following configuration file. Ensure that you replace example.com with your own domain name.

server {  
     listen 443 ssl default_server;  
     listen [::]:443 ssl default_server;  
     server_name example.com www.example.com;  
     ssl_certificate /etc/letsencrypt/live/example.com/fullchain.pem;  
     ssl_certificate_key /etc/letsencrypt/live/example.com/privkey.pem;
     //rest of your configuration
}

Save and close the file. Then, verify that the syntax of the configuration file is correct by running the following command:

sudo nginx -t

Finally, restart Nginx for the changes to take effect:

sudo systemctl restart nginx

Conclusion

In this tutorial, we have seen how to install and configure Certbot in Ubuntu 18.04 to secure an Nginx web server with free digital certificates. To keep the certificates up to date, you should use the Certbot renew command periodically. For more information, refer to the Certbot documentation at https://certbot.eff.org/docs/.

FAQs

  • Q: What is Certbot?
  • A: Certbot is an open-source certificate authority (CA) managed by the Internet Security Research Group (ISRG). It helps website owners secure their websites by issuing and managing digital certificates.
  • Q: What is the command to install Certbot?
  • A: The command to install Certbot is sudo apt-get install certbot.
  • Q: What is the command to renew a certificate?
  • A: The command to renew a certificate is sudo certbot renew.

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