Get Started

Certbot has a fairly solid beta-quality Apache plugin, which is supported on many platforms, and automates both obtaining and installing certs:

$ ./path/to/certbot-auto --apache

If you’re feeling more conservative and would like to make the changes to your Apache configuration by hand, you can use the certonly subcommand:

$ ./path/to/certbot-auto --apache certonly

To learn more about how to use Certbot read our documentation.

Automating renewal

Certbot can be configured to renew your certificates automatically before they expire. Since Let’s Encrypt certificates last for 90 days, it’s highly advisable to take advantage of this feature. You can test automatic renewal for your certificates by running this command:

./path/to/certbot-auto renew --dry-run 

If that appears to be working correctly, you can arrange for automatic renewal by adding a cronor systemd job which runs the following:

./path/to/certbot-auto renew --quiet --no-self-upgrade

More detailed information and options about renewal can be found in the full documentation.