How to use LetsEncrypt with Certbot

Certbot is a wonderful tool you can use to: Generate a SSL certificate with LetsEncrypt and automatically install and configure it on your webserver.

Prerequisites

You'll need a website that's already online and hosted on a server. Obviously a domain is also necessary.

Installing Certbot...

on Debian 11/10

First we'll have to install snapd:

$ sudo apt update
$ sudo apt install snapd

Now ensure that your version of snap is up to date by runnig this command:

$ sudo snap install core; sudo snap refresh core

Make sure to remove any old certbot installations:

$ sudo apt-get remove certbot

Then, install Certbot:

$ sudo snap install --classic certbot

Execute the following command to ensure that the certbot command can be run:

$ sudo ln -s /snap/bin/certbot /usr/bin/certbot

on Ubuntu 20

Ensure that your version of snap is up to date by runnig this command:

$ sudo snap install core; sudo snap refresh core

Make sure to remove any old certbot installations:

$ sudo apt-get remove certbot

Then, install Certbot:

$ sudo snap install --classic certbot

Execute the following command to ensure that the certbot command can be run:

$ sudo ln -s /snap/bin/certbot /usr/bin/certbot

on CentOS 8

If you don’t already have the CentOS repository added to your distribution, it can be added as follows:

$ sudo dnf install epel-release
$ sudo dnf upgrade

Then, simply install snapd with yum:

$ sudo yum install snapd

Once installed, the systemd unit that manages the main snap communication socket needs to be enabled:

$ sudo systemctl enable --now snapd.socket

To enable classic snap support, enter the following to create a symbolic link between /var/lib/snapd/snap and /snap:

$ sudo ln -s /var/lib/snapd/snap /snap

Either log out and back in again or restart your system to ensure snap’s paths are updated correctly.

Now ensure that your version of snap is up to date by runnig this command:

$ sudo snap install core; sudo snap refresh core

Make sure to remove any old certbot installations:

$ sudo yum remove certbot

Then, install Certbot:

$ sudo snap install --classic certbot

Execute the following command to ensure that the certbot command can be run:

$ sudo ln -s /snap/bin/certbot /usr/bin/certbot

Create and install certificate

Just get a certificate

If you don't want to automatically install and configure the certbot certificate, run this command to only generate it:

$ sudo certbot certonly --your_webserver

This will just put the certificate and key under /etc/letsencrypt/live/your_domain/.

Automatically install it

If you want to automatically install and also configure it in your webserver, run this command with your corresponding web server:

$ sudo certbot --your_webserver

Confirm that Certbot worked

To confirm that your site is set up properly, visit https://yourwebsite.com/ in your browser and look for the lock icon in the URL bar.

Conclusion

In this article I showed you: How to install and use Certbot on three different platforms and with three different web servers. If I have helped you, consider signing up for free to get access to all my guides and my newsletter.