LetsEncrypt utility client for WebFaction hosts.
This tool simplifies the manual process of using LetsEncrypt on Webfaction hosts. It can be added to cron where it will validate your domains automatically, place the generated certificates in a common folder, and then email the Webfaction support team to request installation, also notifying you.
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!
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
You can install LetsEncrypt Webfaction using the system Ruby or using RBEnv.
This is the simpler method and is preferred.
Run the following command to install:
GEM_HOME=$HOME/.letsencrypt_webfaction/gems RUBYLIB=$GEM_HOME/lib gem2.2 install letsencrypt_webfactionAdd the following to ~/.bash_profile:
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 $*
}Now, you can run letsencrypt_webfaction from the shell.
This method is useful if you are already using RBEnv to manage Ruby.
Follow the instructions to set up RBEnv and Ruby Build on your WebFaction server.
Once you have done so, install Ruby 2.1+ (probably 2.3.0 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 2.3.0
$ rbenv local 2.3.0
$ gem install letsencrypt_webfaction
$ rbenv rehash
$ rm .ruby-version
Basic example:
$ letsencrypt_webfaction --account_email me@example.com --domains example.com,www.example.com --public ~/webapps/myapp/public_html/
To quickly get a list of parameters, you can call:
$ letsencrypt_webfaction --help
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 GEM_HOME=$HOME/.letsencrypt_webfaction/gems RUBYLIB=$GEM_HOME/lib ruby2.2 $HOME/.letsencrypt_webfaction/gems/bin/letsencrypt_webfaction --account_email you@example.com --domains example.com,www.example.com --public ~/webapps/myapp/
# RBEnv Installation
0 4 1 */2 * RBENV_ROOT=~/.rbenv RBENV_VERSION=2.3.0 ~/.rbenv/bin/rbenv exec letsencrypt_webfaction --account_email you@example.com --domains example.com,www.example.com --public ~/webapps/myapp/
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. It may be preferable to change the date of the month that your cron task runs on so that WebFaction staff don't simultaneously receive all certificate change requests at the same time.
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.
Default 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 config file and arguments are passed, they will be interleaved with the 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 pass the --config ./myconfig.yml parameter.
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 example.com,www.example.com --public ~/webapps/myapp/public_html/
This could be run automatically every two months.
When the code runs, it places verification files into a public directory, validates the domains with LetsEncrypt (or your ACME provider), and then dumps the signed certificate and private key into an output folder. By default, the output folder is ~/le_certs/, inside which it will create [domain_name]/[timestamp]/.
After this is done, the utility will email the cert installation request to Webfaction support and also copy you.
If you see messages containing SyntaxErrors, you are most likely using an old version of Ruby. This utility requires Ruby 2.1+.
For this utility to work, it is assumed that there is a folder which is directly served at http://yourdomain/ 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.php in it. This is usually in /home/myuser/webapps/myapp/.
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/myapp/current/public/.
Particularly in the case of Gmail, you may need to override the default usage of Sendmail and use SMTP. You can add custom configuration to the config file you pass, in order to accomplish this.
A Gmail example might be:
email_configuration:
:via: 'smtp'
:via_options:
:address: 'smtp.gmail.com'
:port: '587'
:enable_starttls_auto: true
:user_name: 'myuser@gmail.com'
:password: 'password_see_note'
:authentication: 'plain'
:domain: 'localhost.localdomain' # the HELO domain provided by the client to the serverSee the wiki for additional Gmail specific notes.
For all possible options, see the Pony configuration.
To run the script directly from the repository, use:
$ ruby -Ilib exe/letsencrypt_webfaction
To test certificate issuance, consider using the LetsEncrypt staging server. This doesn't have the 5 certs per domain every 7 days rate limit. You can add the --endpoint https://acme-staging.api.letsencrypt.org/ parameter to do so.
You will probably also want to use the argument --support_email "" which will keep support from actually being contacted. Alternately, set the support_email address to be yourself.
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