HTTPS certificates used to cost hundreds of dollars per year. Setup was manual and painful. Let’s Encrypt changed the rules: automatic, free DV certificates for every domain. HTTPS for all our projects — finally, no more excuses.
Why HTTPS everywhere¶
Google favors HTTPS in rankings. Chrome marks HTTP pages as “Not Secure”. HTTP/2 requires HTTPS. And of course — protecting user data. In 2016, plain HTTP has no place on the web.
Certbot: automation¶
# Installation and certificate retrieval
sudo apt-get install certbot python-certbot-nginx
sudo certbot --nginx -d example.com -d www.example.com
# Automatic renewal (cron)
0 0 1 * * certbot renew --quiet
Certbot automatically configures Nginx, obtains a certificate via the ACME protocol and sets up a cron job for renewal every 3 months. The whole process takes a minute.
Wildcard certificates¶
Let’s Encrypt plans wildcard certificates (*.example.com) — not yet available, but individual certificates for subdomains work reliably.
Docker integration¶
For Docker environments we use nginx-proxy with letsencrypt-nginx-proxy-companion. Automatic container detection, automatic certificates. Zero-effort HTTPS.
No more excuses for HTTP¶
With Let’s Encrypt there is no reason to run anything over HTTP. Free, automatic, reliable. Deploy HTTPS on all your projects — now.
Need help with implementation?
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