Support » Localhost Installs » Integrating LetsEncrypt with WordPress without CPanel

  • I am doing some work for a charitable trust who have asked me to integrate LetsEncrypt with their self-hosted WordPress sites, in such a way that we can automate the certificate installation and renewal process.

    The preferred way to do this, according to the LetsEncrypt website (https://letsencrypt.org/getting-started) is to install the CertBot ACME client on the web server. I am not able to do this, because I don’t have remote access via SSH, and our web hosting provider won’t give it to me. They do not support LetsEncrypt, and won’t install the software for me.

    I see that there are several WordPress plugins which provide LetsEncrypt functionality for WordPress, however most of these seem to require CPanel, which we don’t have.
    What I’m looking for is a WordPress plugin which does not require CPanel or SSH access to install, and which provides automated certificate issue, installation and renewal.
    The closest thing I’ve found seems to be this: https://wordpress.org/plugins/auto-install-free-ssl – BUT according to the documentation this will still require manual installation of the certificate, which will be a lot of hassle when we have 8 or 9 websites that use 90 day certificates.

    Any suggestions would be very welcome.

Viewing 5 replies - 1 through 5 (of 5 total)
  • Moderator Yui

    (@fierevere)

    永子

    https://wordpress.org/plugins/search/letsencrypt/

    check if they are able to obtain certificate for you.

    regarding integration, if you are running your own managed server (VPS or dedicated), you can use full path to generated certificate in apache/nginx/whatever config or create a symlink.

    Server still will not reload configuration and certificates on update but it can be scheduled to be done on daily basis

    Thread Starter fawltster

    (@fawltster)

    The problem is that I do not have access to the web server configuration files.
    Currently I have FTP access only (no SSH), which gives me access to the htdocs directory for the WordPress website, but nothing else. The server is not dedicated exclusively to our use and we do not have full administrative access to it.

    Dion

    (@diondesigns)

    If you can’t restart Apache/nginx, then you can’t manually install your own SSL certificates. Two comments:

    1) There are better alternatives to CertBot, such as acme.sh and GetSSL.
    2) Give some thought to finding a new hosting provider that supports Let’s Encrypt.

    Thread Starter fawltster

    (@fawltster)

    Would this be achievable if I was able to change the .htaccess file for the site in question ? As previously stated, I don’t have access to the main configuration files for Apache because this is a shared host.
    The hosting provider does also allow us to create cron jobs – although we have to fill out a form to request this.

    Dion

    (@diondesigns)

    Restarting services requires the root user or SUDO privileges, so you’ll need to ask your host whether they support running a CRON task that restarts Apache/nginx. If they do, then you can create a CRON task that renews a Let’s Encrypt certificate every two months. If not, then your only recourse is to move to new hosting that supports issuing/renewing free certificates such as those from Let’s Encrypt.

Viewing 5 replies - 1 through 5 (of 5 total)
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