I’ve just tried Let’s encrypt service and may say it works like a charm! I am really impressed by it’s simplicity and robustness. It really works as it’s promised within several lines in shell. That’s how a good software should be made.

Let’s encrypt is an SSL authority service that issues short-term SSL certificates for you. A typical certificate expires in 90 days and then you request for a new one.

What’s the point to use exactly Let’s encrypt? There are some other SSL providers who also offer free certificates, just google for “free SSL cert”. The main reason is Let’s encrypt is totally automated. You don’t even need to open their site. The whole setup might be done in bash session in 5 minutes.

Here is a quick example of setting up a SSL certificate on outdated Ubuntu 12.04 LTS:

  1. Download certbot script. Certbot is an open source software to communicate with Let’s encrypt service via secure ACME protocol:

    wget https://dl.eff.org/certbot-auto
chmod a+x certbot-auto

  2. Backup your Nginx config by copying your *.conf files from /etc/nginx/conf.d/ somewhere. Then run:

    sudo /path/to/certbot-auto --nginx

    This command will ask you several questions. In most cases, the default choice would be enough. It scans your current Nginx config and makes required changes. Finally, you will be prompted for submitting your email. Please enter an existing one since it requires confirmation. In a minute, check your inbox and follow the secret link to submit your account.

  3. Reload Nginx service with something like

    sudo service nginx restart

    Open your site in Chrome, go to Developer console, “Security” tab, “View certificate” below the green label:

    SSL green label

    First, all the labels should be green but not red or orange. Second, “Let’s encrypt” authority should be noticed in the certificate’s details:

    SSL issued by

  4. You have gone through the main steps so far, although it would be great to setup automatic update for your certificate. Add the following into crontab config:

    0 */12 * * * /path/to/certbot-auto renew --no-self-upgrade

    This job tries to update the certificate twice a day as the official guide recommends.

To find out more, please examine the Certbot documentation. It has nice setup wizard with step-by-step algorithms for all the operation systems. You may also automate Let’s encrypt not with bash script but within your favorite language. See the “Client options” page to observe existing libraries.

Finally, I urge you to enable SSL for your project right now if you haven’t done this yet. Nowadays, there cannot be an excuse for sending your client’s data as-is without encryption. Please respect your visitors. Setting up SSL has never been so easy as it is with Let’s encrypt nowadays.