SSL - Automatic Certificate Management Environment (ACME)

The Automatic Certificate Management Environment (ACME) protocol allow automating interactions between certificate authorities and their users' servers, allowing the automated deployment of public key infrastructure.

Most of the issuers offers Automatic Issuing free of cost.

Environment Variables

To enable the ACME protocol we need to enable Certbot in EasyHAProxy by setting up to 4 environment variables:

Environment Variable	Required?	Description
EASYHAPROXY_CERTBOT_EMAIL	YES	Your email in the certificate authority.
EASYHAPROXY_CERTBOT_AUTOCONFIG	-	Will use pre-sets for your Certificate Authority (CA). See table below.
EASYHAPROXY_CERTBOT_SERVER	-	The ACME Endpoint of your certificate authority. If you use AUTOCONFIG, it is set automatically. See table below.
EASYHAPROXY_CERTBOT_EAB_KID	-	External Account Binding (EAB) Key Identifier (KID) provided by your certificate authority. Some CA require it. See table below.
EASYHAPROXY_CERTBOT_EAB_HMAC_KEY	-	External Account Binding (EAB) HMAC Key provided by your certificate authority. Some CA require it. See table below.
EASYHAPROXY_CERTBOT_RETRY_COUNT	-	Wait 'n' requests before retrying issue invalid requests. Default 60.

Auto Config Certificate Authority (CA)

Here are detailed instructions per Certificate Authority (CA). If anyone is missing, please let's know.

CA	Auto Config	Free?	Account Required?	EAB KID?	EAB HMAC Key?	More Info
Let's Encrypt	-	Yes	No	No	No	-
Let's Encrypt (Test)	letsencrypt_test	Yes	No	No	No	-
ZeroSSL	zerossl	Yes	No	No	No	Link
BuyPass	buypass	Yes	No	No	No	Link
BuyPass (test)	buypass_test	Yes	No	No	No	Link
Google	google	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Link
Google Test	google_test	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Link
SSLCOM RCA	sslcom_rca	Trial	EAB Keys by email.	Yes	Yes	Link
SSLCOM ECC	sslcom_ecc	Trial	EAB Keys by email.	Yes	Yes	Link
Digicert	-	No	Yes	Yes	Yes	Link
Entrust	-	No	Yes	Yes	Yes	Link
Sectigo	-	No	Yes	Yes	Yes	Link

This configuration is global. After set up ACME properly, is necessary enable for each domain the certificate request.

To do that add the label: easyhaproxy.<definition>.certbot=true. See the method of installation you are using to learn how to set up properly.

Example

Setting up EasyHAProxy

Run the EasyHAProxy container:

docker run \
    ... \
    -e EASYHAPROXY_CERTBOT_AUTOCONFIG=zerossl \
    -e [email protected] \
    -p 80:80 \
    -p 443:443 \
    -v /path/to/guest/certbot/certs:/certs/certbot \
    ... \
    byjg/easy-haproxy

Notes:

• The EASYHAPROXY_CERTBOT_AUTOCONFIG is not required for Let's Encrypt. In this example, the certificate will be issued by ZeroSSL.
• If you don't setup EASYHAPROXY_CERTBOT_EMAIL environment variable, EasyHAProxy will fail silently and will not request a certificate.
• The ports 80 and 443 needs to accessible through the internet as Let's Encrypt requirement

In order to avoid several certificate issuing, It is required you to persist the container folder /certs/certbot outside the container. You cannot delete or change it contents. If you do not persist, or change/delete the contents, Issue a certificate might not work properly and hit rate limit.

If you are using Let's Encrypt, be aware of it rate limits:

• https://letsencrypt.org/docs/duplicate-certificate-limit/
• https://letsencrypt.org/docs/rate-limits/

Setting up your container to use the ACME CA

docker run \
    ... \
    --label easyhaproxy.express.port=80 \
    --label easyhaproxy.express.localport=3000 \
    --label easyhaproxy.express.host=example.org \
    --label easyhaproxy.express.certbot=true \
    ... \
    some/myimage

Requirements:

• Your container must listen to port 80. The CA will not issue the certificate if easyhaproxy.<definition>.port is in another port, and EasyHAProxy will fail silently.
• You cannot set port 443 for the container with the Letsencrypt because EasyHAProxy will create this port automatically once the certificate is issued.

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Open source ByJG