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What do you use for SSL that doesn't require thinking?

Reviews by LifeZoe 28 replies 2.1K views
lee_mcr

Member

#21

dot39 said:
When certbot breaks on OS upgrade

Happened to me on Ubuntu 20 to 22. The certbot PPA went stale, renewals failed silently until I checked. Now I have UptimeRobot ping the expiry date. So much for set-and-forget.

Honey badger don't care... about downtime
sven

Member

#22

lee_mcr said:
UptimeRobot ping the expiry date

I do the same but with a simple shell script on my monitoring box. Checks all my domains, alerts to Telegram. Cloudflare origin certs are 15 years but I still check because paranoia. I use https://crt.sh to spot any surprises.

nate_pad

Member

#23

I pressed the button and it says AutoSSL is running. How long do I wait?

liam_funky

Member

Vancouver

#24

nate_pad said:
How long do I wait

Usually under 10 minutes. Go make tea. Then test with SSL Labs or just check your site with https:// in front.

minhdock

Member

#25

I learning SSL very much. Can I use Let's Encrypt with no cron if I use shared hosting? My host in Vietnam say they support but I not understand who run the cron.

lee_mcr

Member

#26

minhdock said:
Who run the cron

The host runs it on their server, not your account. You don't see it. That's the whole point of shared hosting: they manage the OS, you manage your files.

Honey badger don't care... about downtime
StuSpock

Member

NTP fundamentalist

#27

My clocks are synchronized and my SSL expiry checks are too. NTP and TLS: both about trust chains. That's all I have to say.

SO

Member

2 #28

StuSpock said:
My clocks are synchronized

This. Expired cert because wrong date on VM. True story. Check ntpd before you blame Let's Encrypt.

LI

Member

#29

To summarize what seems settled:

  • cPanel AutoSSL and similar host-integrated tools handle renewal without user cron jobs
  • Cloudflare origin certs are long-lived but require Cloudflare proxying
  • Commercial CAs exist for those who want to pay and not think about ACME at all
  • Pure Let's Encrypt always needs some automation layer, visible or not
If anyone has a host that genuinely requires zero clicks after initial setup, please name them specifically.

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