# How To Install Free SSL Certificate Using Let’s Encrypt, APACHE and Reverse Proxy on Linux

# pre-requisites

Apache installed ,enabled and started. In order to configure SSL, you will need to ensure that the Apache mod_ssl module is installed on the server.

sudo yum install mod_ssl

# Step 1: Add A Records on your Cpanel for your domain EG

for domain site.mydomain.com

create two a records for site.mydomain.com and www.site.mydomain.com

# Step 2: Generating Certificate file from Letsencrypt

# 2.1 Install certbot tool

# Ubuntu / Debian
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install certbot

# Fedora
sudo dnf install certbot python2-certbot-apache

# CentOS 8
sudo dnf -y install epel-release
sudo dnf -y install certbot

# CentOS 7
sudo yum -y install epel-release
sudo yum -y install certbot

# 2.2 Stop Apache Server according to your Linux Release.

# 2.3 Generate Certificate from Letsencrypt.

pre-requisite: Test your domain name dns record if they are pointing to your public ip address. You can user the following site. EG https://dnschecker.org/

sudo certbot certonly -d site.mydomain.com -d www.site.mydomain.com

As you make first request, the script will install required packages/dependencies and setup virtual environment. Initially you can choose to spin up a a temporary webserver (standalone) for domain verification.

The generated file will be found in /etc/letsencrypt/live/site.mydomain.com/. The Location Varies according to your domain name

Note the above location since we are going to use them in the next step

# Step 3: SSL and Reverse Proxy Configuration

Edit the virtual host entry available in /etc/httpd/conf.d/ssl.conf file to assign the Private Key, Certificate and the Intermediate CA file to the configuration. The Above location is variant across different Linux Distributions. The above location is for RHEL-based Distro

# 3.1 Setting Server Name (Optional)

inside the following tag <VirtualHost _default_:443>

set server name e.g for domainsite.mydomain.com would be ServerName site.mydomain.com

# 3.2 Setting path to Server Certificate , Server Private Key and Server Certificate Chain files.

Find the tags and edit the corresponding correct path E.G

For Server Certificate /etc/letsencrypt/live/site.mydomain.com/cert.pem

For Server Private Key /etc/letsencrypt/live/site.mydomain.com/privkey.pem

For Server Certificate Chain: /etc/letsencrypt/live/site.mydomain.com/fullchain.pem

NB The Above File naming pattern can be different.

# 3.3 Set up The Reverse Proxy

Just before the</VirtualHost> tag add the following lines

<Proxy *>
	Order deny,allow
        Allow from all
   </Proxy>
  
   ProxyRequests Off
   ProxyPreserveHost On
   ProxyPass / http://localhost:8081/
   ProxyPassReverse / http://localhost:8081/

Where by http://localhost:8081/ is the URL to your application.

# Finally restart Apache and enjoy

😊

# created-by: Simon Kimathi

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