Easy & Free HTTPS with Let's Encrypt

HTTPS make the internet better and safer. It allows us to communicate securely in insecure channel such as public Wi-Fi or Internet Cafe.

In order to implement HTTPS in our site, we need a certificate that will prove your site is yours. Sure we can create this certificate ourself but, the Browser will only verify the certificate that issued by trusted authorities.

That's when CA (Certificate Authority) come. Just like what their web said, Let's Encrypt is a CA that offer you a free certificates

Let\u2019s Encrypt is a free, automated, and open Certificate Authority.

Let's get it done!

I'm gonna only cover the case with "shell access", so in order to continue, you have to have shell access to your site.

1. Installing Certbot

If you use Nginx and Ubuntu 16.04, installing Certbot will goes like this:

$ sudo apt-get update
$ sudo apt-get install software-properties-common
$ sudo add-apt-repository ppa:certbot/certbot
$ sudo apt-get update
$ sudo apt-get install python-certbot-nginx

For others web server or OS please visit Certbot Website

2. Installing Certificate

Now with Certbot, we can automatically get our certificate and edit Nginx configuration!

$ sudo certbot --nginx

Follow the instruction and submit all the required data.

Which names would you like to activate HTTPS for?
-------------------------------------------------------
1: nolambda.stream
-------------------------------------------------------
Select the appropriate numbers separated by commas and/or spaces, or leave input
blank to select all options shown (Enter 'c' to cancel):

That's pretty much it, your site should be accessible by HTTPS now! 🔐

Extra

If you only want to get your certificate, you can request using

$ sudo certbot --nginx --cert-only

For others web server or OS please go to Certbot Website

Until next time, cao ~