How To Set Up Let's Encrypt with Nginx Server Blocks on Ubuntu 16.04 Step 5 — Verifying Certbot Auto-Renewal

To test the renewal process, you can do a dry run with certbot:

sudo certbot renew --dry-run

To test the renewal process, you can do a dry run with certbot:

sudo certbot renew --dry-run

How To Set Up Let's Encrypt with Nginx Server Blocks on Ubuntu 16.04 Step 1 — Installing Certbot

You’ll need to press ENTER to accept. Then, update the package list to pick up the new repository’s package information.

sudo apt-get update

How To Set Up Let's Encrypt with Nginx Server Blocks on Ubuntu 16.04 Step 1 — Installing Certbot

And finally, install Certbot’s Nginx package with apt-get.

sudo apt-get install python-certbot-nginx

How To Set Up Let's Encrypt with Nginx Server Blocks on Ubuntu 16.04 Step 4 — Obtaining an SSL Certificate

Select your choice then hit ENTER. The configuration will be updated, and Nginx will reload to pick up the new settings. certbot will wrap up with a message telling you the process was successful and where your certificates are stored:

OutputIMPORTANT NOTES:
 - Congratulations! Your certificate and chain have been saved at
   /etc/letsencrypt/live/example.com/fullchain.pem. Your cert will
   expire on 2017-10-23. To obtain a new or tweaked version of this
   certificate in the future, simply run certbot again with the
   "certonly" option. To non-interactively renew *all* of your
   certificates, run "certbot renew"
 - Your account credentials have been saved in your Certbot
   configuration directory at /etc/letsencrypt. You should make a
   secure backup of this folder now. This configuration directory will
   also contain certificates and private keys obtained by Certbot so
   making regular backups of this folder is ideal.
 - If you like Certbot, please consider supporting our work by:

   Donating to ISRG / Let's Encrypt:   https://letsencrypt.org/donate
   Donating to EFF:                    https://eff.org/donate-le

How To Set Up Let's Encrypt with Nginx Server Blocks on Ubuntu 16.04 Step 1 — Installing Certbot

First, add the repository.

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:certbot/certbot

How To Set Up Let's Encrypt with Nginx Server Blocks on Ubuntu 16.04 Step 2 — Confirming Nginx’s Configuration

To check, open the server block file for your domain using nano or your favorite text editor.

sudo nano /etc/nginx/sites-available/example.com

How To Set Up Let's Encrypt with Nginx Server Blocks on Ubuntu 16.04 Step 2 — Confirming Nginx’s Configuration

If you get an error, reopen the server block file and check for any typos or missing characters. Once your configuration file’s syntax is correct, reload Nginx to load the new configuration.

sudo systemctl reload nginx

How To Set Up Let's Encrypt with Nginx Server Blocks on Ubuntu 16.04 Step 4 — Obtaining an SSL Certificate

Certbot provides a variety of ways to obtain SSL certificates, through various plugins. The Nginx plugin will take care of reconfiguring Nginx and reloading the config whenever necessary:

sudo certbot --nginx -d example.com -d www.example.com

How To Set Up Let's Encrypt with Nginx Server Blocks on Ubuntu 16.04 Step 4 — Obtaining an SSL Certificate

If that’s successful, certbot will ask how you’d like to configure your HTTPS settings.

OutputPlease choose whether or not to redirect HTTP traffic to HTTPS, removing HTTP access.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1: No redirect - Make no further changes to the webserver configuration.
2: Redirect - Make all requests redirect to secure HTTPS access. Choose this for
new sites, or if you're confident your site works on HTTPS. You can undo this
change by editing your web server's configuration.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Select the appropriate number [1-2] then [enter] (press 'c' to cancel):

How To Set Up Let's Encrypt with Nginx Server Blocks on Ubuntu 16.04 Step 2 — Confirming Nginx’s Configuration

If it doesn’t, update it to match. Then save the file, quit your editor, and verify the syntax of your configuration edits.