HTTPS with Certbot

Wishing to make use of the Service Worker API and prevent Chrome from showing my site as ‘Not Secure’ I recently upgraded my site to use HTTPS. I decided to use Let's Encrypt for a free SSL certificate. Let's Encrypt recommend using Certbot to automate the process of installing and renewing SSL certificates. It also configures your server for you!

Using Certbot

On Certbot's site simply enter your server software and system and the site will guide you through setting up Certbot on your server.

I am using Apache 2 on Ubuntu 16.04 so the steps were as follows.

Install

apt-get update
apt-get install software-properties-common
add-apt-repository ppa:certbot/certbot
apt-get update
apt-get install python-certbot-apache

Setup

certbot --apache

Renewal

certbot renew # add as a cron job

Conclusion

That's it! Setting up HTTPS only took a matter of minutes and worked without a hitch. My experience with Let's Encrypt and Certbot so far has been perfect and I would highly recommend the services to anyone wishing to switch to HTTPS.