Enable HTTPS with Let’s Encrypt

Enable HTTPS with Let’s Encrypt

Enhance the security and trust of your website by enabling HTTPS with a free SSL/TLS certificate from Let’s Encrypt. This guide walks you through installing the necessary tools, obtaining a certificate, and configuring your Apache web server.

Prerequisites

• A domain name pointed to your remote server/VPS.
• An Apache web server running on your server.
• SSH access to your server with root or sudo privileges.

To Access Remote Server via SSH

• Syntax: ssh -p PORT USERNAME@HOSTIP
• Example: ssh -p 22 root@216.32.44.12

Install Certbot and python3-certbot-apache

apt install certbot python3-certbot-apache

• Certbot is a free, open-source software tool for automatically using Let’s Encrypt certificates on manually-administrated websites to enable HTTPS.
• python3-certbot-apache is an Apache plugin for Certbot.

Verify Web Server Ports are Open and Allowed through Firewall

ufw status verbose

Obtain an SSL Certificate

certbot --apache

Check Status of Certbot

systemctl status certbot.timer

Dry Run SSL Renewal

certbot renew --dry-run