Install Lets Encrypt DirectAdmin - Install Guide - First2Host.co.uk

Lets Encrypt

Let’s Encrypt is a service that will generate a basic domain validated SSL Certificate for each domain name on the server. Once you install Let’s Encrypt on DirectAdmin This SSL is checked and renewed every three months for free. Since Google introduced negative effects for all sites without an SSL Certificate it’s vital each site you have has one. The cost of a basic SSL used to be about £10 but now everyone can get an SSL Certificate for free.

Like on cPanel servers you can get a plugin from Let’s Encrypt For cPanel to deploy to the server. This gives users a graphical user interface (GUI) to control the SSL certificate. In the basic state, cPanel does not have this. On DirectAdmin, you also get a GUI for Let’s Encrypt To install Let’s Encrypt on a DirectAdmin server follow the steps below.

Lets Encrypt DirectAdmin

First, Ensure the letsencrypt=1 line in the directadmin.conf file;

nano /usr/local/directadmin/conf/directadmin.conf

letsencrypt=1

Next, Restart Direct Admin

echo "action=directadmin&value=restart" >> /usr/local/directadmin/data/task.queue; /usr/local/directadmin/dataskq d2000

Now, add the /.well-known Alias

cd /usr/local/directadmin/custombuild
./build rewrite_confs

Finally, install the latest version of Let’s Encrypt

cd /usr/local/directadmin/custombuild
./build update
./build letsencrypt

That’s it. Users will not have access to Let’s Encrypt via the SSL Certificates link in their control panels.

Rate Limiting

Let’s Encrypt enforces rate limiting. That means you can only send 100 requests per week to them to get an SSL Certificate. If you are migrating from another server to DirectAdmin and you have a lot of accounts then you might have to spread the requests out over a few weeks or let users generate there own SSL Certificates when ready. Unfortunately, the only way around this is to generate the SSL certificates you need on a Saturday but then you can generate more on Sunday. So, if you have more than 200 accounts to generate SSLs for then you will have to wait a week to generate more.

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