How to configure Let's Encrypt with Apache on Ubuntu Bionic

Reviewed on 10 May 2021 • Published on 23 May 2019

compute
Let's-Encrypt
Apache
Ubuntu-Bionic
SSL-certificates

Let’s Encrypt Overview

Let’s Encrypt is a certificate authority providing free SSL certificates. The creation, validation, installation is automated with certbot — all major browsers trust certificates issued by Let’s Encrypt.

In this tutorial you will learn how to secure the Apache web server on Ubuntu Bionic Beaver with a Let’s Encrypt certificate using certbot.

Requirements:

You have an account and are logged into the Scaleway Console
You have created an Instance
You have configured your SSH Key
You have sudo privileges or access to the root user.

Installing Apache

Start by updating the software already installed on the instance:
```
apt update
apt upgrade -y
```
Install the Apache Web Server:
```
apt install apache2
```
Create a directory for the website. In this tutorial myweb.example.com is being used. Replace it with your domain name whenever you see it:
```
mkdir -p /var/www/html/myweb.example.com/public_html
```

Create an index page for the website by running the following command:

nano /var/www/html/myweb.example.com/public_html/index.html

Then copy the following content into the file, save it and exit nano:

<html>
<head>
<title>myweb.example.com</title>
</head>
<body>
<h1>New Website</h1>
<p>This is the new website of myweb.exaple.com</p>
</body>
</html>

Create a configuration file for the website, by making a copy of the default configuration:

cp /etc/apache2/sites-available/000-default.conf /etc/apache2/sites-available/myweb.example.com.conf

Open the file in a text editor:
```
/etc/apache2/sites-available/myweb.example.com.conf
```
Edit the following lines to match your configuration, add them to the file, save it and exit the editor:
```
ServerAdmin webmaster@myweb.example.com
ServerName myweb.example.com
ServerAlias www.myweb.example.com
DocumentRoot /var/www/html/myweb.example.com/public_html
```
Once edited the file should look like this example:
Activate the new site:
```
a2ensite myweb.example.com
```
Reload the Apache configuration to enable the new site:
```
systemctl reload apache2
```

Installing Certbot

Install the pre-required packages and repositories:

apt install software-properties-common -y && add-apt-repository universe -y && add-apt-repository ppa:certbot/certbot -y

Update the apt packet cache:
```
apt update
```

Install Certbot via apt:

apt install certbot python-certbot-apache -y

Running Certbot

Run Certbot to request a certificate for the domain name:
```
certbot --apache
```
Certbot will ask you a series of questions:
- In a first step Certbot asks for your email address. Enter it and press Enter on your keyboard.
- You will then be asked to agree to the terms of service, confirm it by pressing on A.
- Decide if you want to share your email address with the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF). Press Y for yes or N for no.
- Following you will be asked for which domains you want to activate SSL. Select the appropriate numbers separated by commas and/or spaces, or leave input blank to select all options shown.
- Certbot asks if all traffic should be forced to HTTPS. Type 1 for no or 2 for yes.
- The certificate is being requested and the following message appears once it has been obtained:
```
Congratulations! You have successfully enabled https://myweb.example.com

You should test your configuration at:
https://www.ssllabs.com/ssltest/analyze.html?d=myweb.example.com
```
Verify the certificate by opening your site in a web browser:

You notice the small padlock icon indicating that the connection to your instance is encrypted now.