LetsEncrypt utility client for WebFaction hosts.
This tool automates the process of using LetsEncrypt on WebFaction hosts. It can be added to the Cron scheduled task runner where it will validate your domains automatically, obtain the certificates, and then install them using the Webfaction API.
For more documentation, as well as walkthroughs, see the wiki!
Note: if you find this useful and are setting up a new account, you can support me a little by using my WebFaction affiliate link. I think I get a 10% referal bonus from whatever you spend at WebFaction. Thanks!
Certbot is the "official" (in that it was the first and to some extent reference client) Let's Encrypt client. Let's Encrypt decided to focus Certbot on a particular use case, namely the configuration of servers which are directly facing the internet and can have the Certbot application run as root. For other use cases, they encourage the implementation of other clients tailored to different cases. This has spawned a wide variety of alternative implementations.
LetsEncrypt WebFaction is just such an alternative implementation. It was built because the WebFaction use case does not fit in the Certbot preconditions, namely that users don't have root access to change the frontend Nginx server configuration. WebFaction has a custom API we use to install the certificate.
Certbot could probably be used in "webroot" mode to create the certificate on disk, and have someone write a custom plugin to install using the API. For various reasons, I decided not to do this. If someone creates instructions to do this, I'd be happy to link to it from the wiki.
Below are a list of server administration topics that it is assumed you know in order to follow the installation and setup instructions. If you find something in the readme that is unclear to you, please open a ticket and I'll try to improve the documentation!
Cron is an application which will execute commands on a defined schedule. WebFaction has some good documentation on how to use it.
All of the commands listed below (unless specified otherwise) are run in an SSH session on the server. Again, WebFaction has written a splendid little tutorial on how to get this working.
If you're not happy navigating around your server's folders and files through SSH, you might find some of this process easier if you access your server with an FTP client over Secure FTP. WebFaction also has this covered.
This utility works on CentOS 6 and 7 boxes. The CentOS 5 systems do not have a new enough OpenSSL to include the algorithms required. You may be able to make this work using rbenv and compiling openssl yourself. A tutorial for CentOS 5 is available here: https://github.com/will-in-wi/letsencrypt-webfaction/wiki/Install-custom-OpenSSL-and-Ruby-on-CentOS-5-host
All places where you need to substitute a value specific to your setup will be denoted with square brackets, e.g. [yourdomain.com]. There are cases where shell variables are used, such as $HOME. These should be typed verbatim.
You can install LetsEncrypt WebFaction using the system Ruby or using RBEnv.
This is the simpler method and is preferred.
Run the following command in an SSH session to install the letsencrypt_webfaction package via the RubyGems package management site:
GEM_HOME=$HOME/.letsencrypt_webfaction/gems RUBYLIB=$GEM_HOME/lib gem2.2 install letsencrypt_webfactionAdd the following to ~/.bash_profile (using, for example, an FTP client or your favorite text editor):
function letsencrypt_webfaction {
PATH=$PATH:$GEM_HOME/bin GEM_HOME=$HOME/.letsencrypt_webfaction/gems RUBYLIB=$GEM_HOME/lib ruby2.2 $HOME/.letsencrypt_webfaction/gems/bin/letsencrypt_webfaction $*
}This will simplify the running of the LetsEncrypt WebFaction command, by setting some variables in advance.
After saving ~/.bash_profile, run the command source $HOME/.bash_profile to apply the new settings.
Now, you are ready to run letsencrypt_webfaction from your SSH session to get certificates. See below for usage.
This method is useful if you are already using RBEnv to manage Ruby, or if you are already a Ruby developer. If neither of these cases are true, just use the system Ruby method.
Follow the instructions to set up RBEnv and Ruby Build on your WebFaction server.
Once you have done so, install Ruby 2.1+, but <2.4 (probably 2.3.1 at time of writing). Then set the local Ruby and install the Gem. Finally unset the local Ruby so that you don't run into problems.
$ rbenv install 2.3.1 # Installs Ruby 2.3.1
$ rbenv local 2.3.1 # Sets Ruby 2.3.1 as the default version in the current folder.
$ gem install letsencrypt_webfaction # Installs this utility from RubyGems.
$ rbenv rehash # Makes RBenv aware of the letsencrypt_webfaction utility.
$ rm .ruby-version # Unsets Ruby 2.3.1 as the default version in the current folder.
Ruby 2.4.0+ is not supported since they removed the XMLRPC library from core and moved it to a gem. This Gem doesn't work in Ruby <2.3, leaving us with an issue as the majority of system Rubies used with this project are <2.4. So don't use 2.4 for now. If you absolutely want to, make sure you install the xmlrpc gem manually.
The syntax of the letsencrypt_webfaction command is as follows:
$ letsencrypt_webfaction --letsencrypt_account_email <email-address> --domains <domain[,domain[,domain...]]> --public <server-folder> --username <webfaction-username> --password <webfaction-password>
The basic parameters are as follows:
-
--letsencrypt_account_emailThe email address you want associated with the issued certificates.
-
--domainsThe domains for which you want to create certificates, separated by commas (with no spaces). The domains must be served from the same folder. There is one certificate per WebFaction Website, regardless of how many domains are served from it.
-
--publicA folder which is directly served at
http://[yourdomain.com]/into which the ACME verification files can be placed.In the case of a PHP site, such as Drupal or Wordpress, look for the folder with
index.phpin it. This is usually in/home/[myuser]/webapps/[yourapp/].In the case of a Rails app, look for a folder called
public/. If you are deploying your app with Capistrano, this could show up in/home/myuser/webapps/[yourapp]/current/public/.In some cases (such as with some Node.js or Python applications), you may need to create this folder. See here for an example of this workaround.
-
--usernameThe username you use to log into the Webfaction control panel. Needed along with the password to upload your cert to their API.
-
--passwordThe password you use to log into the Webfaction control panel.
It is better to place this in a config file than to put it in the command line.
If you have several webapps, then you will need to issue the command several times. The command can be run from any folder.
Other parameters (which are generally best left to their default values, unless you have a perticular need to change them) can be found in the config.defaults.yml configuration file (see below in the "More detailed examples" section).
Here is a basic example which issues one certificate for both yourdomain.com and www.yourdomain.com, both of which are served by ~/webapps/yourapp/wordpress and your WebFaction contact email address is you@youremail.com. This assumes that both yourdomain.com and www.yourdomain.com are served from the same folder.
$ letsencrypt_webfaction --letsencrypt_account_email you@youremail.com --domains yourdomain.com,www.yourdomain.com --public ~/webapps/yourapp/wordpress/ --username myusername --password mypassword
Note: Passing the password via the command line as seen here is insecure. You should use the --config mechanism mentioned later.
To test certificate issuance, consider using the LetsEncrypt staging server. This doesn't have the rate limit of 5 certs per domain every 7 days. You can add the --endpoint https://acme-staging.api.letsencrypt.org/ parameter to the letsencrypt_webfaction command to do so.
A test command could thus be something like the following:
$ letsencrypt_webfaction --letsencrypt_account_email you@youremail.com --domains yourdomain.com,www.yourdomain.com --public ~/webapps/yourapp/wordpress/ --endpoint https://acme-staging.api.letsencrypt.org/
When letsencrypt_webfaction runs, it places verification files into the public directory specified, validates the domains with LetsEncrypt, and then uploads the certificate to WebFaction's API.
To quickly get a list of parameters and help for each, you can run:
$ letsencrypt_webfaction --help
Once you have the certificate installed and working, you will probably want to redirect the HTTP version of your site to the HTTPS version. WebFaction has documentation describing how to do this.
Normally, you will run the script manually once to get the certificate, and then you will use Cron to automate future certificate renewal.
Your Cron task could look something like:
# System Ruby Installation
0 4 1 */2 * PATH=$PATH:$GEM_HOME/bin:/usr/local/bin GEM_HOME=$HOME/.letsencrypt_webfaction/gems RUBYLIB=$GEM_HOME/lib ruby2.2 $HOME/.letsencrypt_webfaction/gems/bin/letsencrypt_webfaction --letsencrypt_account_email [you@youremail.com] --domains [yourdomain.com,www.yourdomain.com] --public ~/webapps/[yourapp/your_public_html]/
# RBEnv Installation
0 4 1 */2 * RBENV_ROOT=~/.rbenv RBENV_VERSION=2.3.1 ~/.rbenv/bin/rbenv exec letsencrypt_webfaction --letsencrypt_account_email [you@youremail.com] --domains [yourdomain.com,www.yourdomain.com] --public ~/webapps/[yourapp/your_public_html]/
This would run at 4 a.m. on the first day of January, March, May, July, September, and November. Certificates expire three months after issuance, so modify as desired (for example, you may want to run the task every two months initially, to be sure that everything is working before extending the period). Change the date of the Cron task so that WebFaction staff don't simultaneously receive all certificate change requests on the first day of the month.
If you have more than one Cron task running like this, you may want to set the environment variables at the top of the file, and create a config file containing the contact information.
If you want to be notified upon failure, you can add MAILTO=[you@youremail.com] to the top of the crontab. This will send you an email whenever any cron job outputs standard out or standard error, which is generally good practice.
While WebFaction staff maintain your standard server software, the support team will not upgrade your installation of LetsEncrypt WebFaction. You won't usually need to do this unless you have an issue but, as is good practice with most software, it's best kept up to date.
You can find the current version by running letsencrypt_webfaction --version. Sort of. In versions >= 1.1.4, this will work. In older versions, this will just print letsencrypt_webfaction: version unknown due to an oversight on my part. So if you get the latter output, just upgrade.
The changelog describes changes from version to version.
LetsEncrypt WebFaction follows Semantic Versioning. In a nutshell, a version number such as 1.2.3 is divided as major.minor.patch. When the major version is incremented, you will probably have to change something about the configuration to make it work. The changelog will let you know what changes you need to make. When the minor version is incremented, there are new features but existing features haven't changed. If the patch version is incremented, the changes are all under the hood and shouldn't change or add any existing features.
TL;DR: Be careful with major version upgrades and you should be fine with upgrading to minor or patch releases.
To upgrade, run one of the following two commands to fetch and install the newest version from RubyGems:
# For system Ruby:
GEM_HOME=$HOME/.letsencrypt_webfaction/gems RUBYLIB=$GEM_HOME/lib gem2.2 install letsencrypt_webfaction
# For RBenv
RBENV_VERSION=2.3.1 gem install letsencrypt_webfactionDefault parameters can be found in config.defaults.yml. All of the parameters can be overridden by passing another config file, arguments to the executable, or both. If a both a config file and command-line arguments are passed, they will be interleaved, with the command-line arguments having precedence.
A config file needs to be in YAML format and have a subset of the keys in config.defaults.yml. If you use a config file, you add the --config [./myconfig.yml] parameter to the letsencrypt_webfaction command.
This allows you to set up a Cron task for multiple sites with the defaults for all of them (such as your email address) in a config file, and site specific directives in the command. For example:
$ letsencrypt_webfaction --config [~/le_config.yml] --domains [yourdomain.com,www.yourdomain.com] --public ~/webapps/[yourapp/your_public_html/]
This could be run automatically every two months.
A config file can be placed anywhere in your WebFaction account. A good place might be ~/le_config/siteconfig.yml.
If you are interested in contributing to this project with new code or bugfixes, welcome!
To run the script directly from the repository, use:
$ ruby -Ilib exe/letsencrypt_webfaction
See details in the "Testing" section above on how to use the Let's Encrypt stage server when developing, together with usage of the --support_email parameter in a testing environment.
After checking out the repo, run bin/setup to install dependencies. Then, run rake spec to run the tests. You can also run bin/console for an interactive prompt that will allow you to experiment.
To install this gem onto your local machine, run bin/rake install. To release a new version, update the version number in lib/letsencrypt_webfaction.rb, and then run bin/rake release, which will create a git tag for the version, push git commits and tags, and push the .gem file to rubygems.org. This project uses Semantic Versioning.
Bug reports and pull requests are welcome on GitHub at https://github.com/will-in-wi/letsencrypt-webfaction