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Obtaining a Let's Encrypt TLS cert using certbot

CertBot manual: https://certbot.eff.org/docs/using.html#manual

The process is manual but would be awesome to make it automated 100%.

We are using multi-domain wildcard certificates for the following domains:

  • *.packit.dev
  • *.stream.packit.dev
  • *.fedora-source-git.packit.dev
  • *.stg.packit.dev
  • *.stg.stream.packit.dev
  • *.stg.fedora-source-git.packit.dev

In case the procedure bellow does not work, previously used http challenge can be used instead. Be aware that the http challenge approach is more complex, includes destructive actions and longer downtime.

tl;dr

  1. Check prerequisites.
  2. Run certbot to obtain the challenges.
  3. Configure DNS TXT records based on values requested in 2.
  4. Update secrets repository.
  5. Re-deploy stg&prod.

Note: If certbot is executed against multiple domains, step 3. is repeated for each domain.

Prerequisites​

Make sure the DNS is all set up:

$ dig prod.packit.dev
; <<>> DiG 9.18.10 <<>> prod.packit.dev
;; QUESTION SECTION:
;prod.packit.dev.       IN  A
;; ANSWER SECTION:
prod.packit.dev.    49  IN  CNAME   router-default.apps.auto-prod.gi0n.p1.openshiftapps.com.
router-default.apps.auto-prod.gi0n.p1.openshiftapps.com. 49 IN A 52.211.65.65
router-default.apps.auto-prod.gi0n.p1.openshiftapps.com. 49 IN A 52.210.199.25

Check if you have access to packit.dev domain in Squarespace Domains (use your Red Hat Google account to log in).

Install certbot locally: dnf install certbot.

Run certbot to obtain the challenges​

Run certbot:

$ certbot certonly --config-dir ~/.certbot --work-dir ~/.certbot --logs-dir ~/.certbot --manual --preferred-challenges dns --email hello@packit.dev -d prod.packit.dev -d stg.packit.dev -d dashboard.packit.dev -d dashboard.stg.packit.dev -d workers.packit.dev -d workers.stg.packit.dev -d prod.stream.packit.dev -d stg.stream.packit.dev -d prod.fedora-source-git.packit.dev -d stg.fedora-source-git.packit.dev

You will be asked to set TXT record for every domain requested:

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Please deploy a DNS TXT record under the name:

_acme-challenge.abcxyz.packit.dev.

with the following value:

123456abcdef
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Press Enter to Continue

Update DNS record​

Go to Squarespace Domains, log in with Google/Red Hat account, and create/set the corresponding value: TXT record called _acme-challenge.abcxyz.packit.dev. If those records already exist (from previous run), don't create new records, just edit current ones (or first delete the old ones and then create new ones).

Wait till it's distributed - in another terminal watch nslookup and once it returns the configured value

[~/]$ watch -d nslookup -q=TXT _acme-challenge.abcxyz.packit.dev
Server:         127.0.0.53
Address:        127.0.0.53#53

Non-authoritative answer:
_acme-challenge.packit.dev      text = "123456abcdef"

Authoritative answers can be found from:

Ctrl+c

Go to the terminal with certbot command waiting for your action and hit Enter.

Repeat this for all requested domains. (Or to save time, first change/add all TXT records, then nslookup the last one and once you have the correct answer, hit Enter )

Update secrets in the vault​

Upload fullchain.pem and privkey.pem from ~/.certbot/live/prod.packit.dev/ to secrets-tls-certs item in our shared Packit collection in Bitwarden vault.

Re-deploy secrets for all services and environments​

oc login ‹cluster›; oc project ‹project› and

for cert in fullchain privkey; do scripts/update_oc_secret.sh packit-secrets ~/.certbot/live/prod.packit.dev/${cert}.pem; done

or update api_key in vars/{packit|stream|fedora-source-git}/{prod|stg}.yml and run:

`SERVICE=‹service› DEPLOYMENT=‹deployment› make deploy TAGS=secrets`

You can also update the packit-secrets secret via the web console (Actions → Edit Secret), but last time it probably (it happened at the same time) mangled also the fedora.keytab, so just be aware that this might happen.

Restart (or scale down and up) packit-service, packit-dashboard and nginx for them to use the new certs.

$ for deploy in packit-service packit-dashboard nginx; do oc rollout restart deploy/${deploy}; done

How to inspect a certificate​

If you want to inspect local certificates, you can use certtool (gnutls-utils package) to view the cert's metadata:

$ certtool -i < ~/.certbot/live/packit.dev/fullchain.pem
X.509 Certificate Information:
    Version: 3
    Serial Number (hex): 04f4864b597f9c0859260d88e04cfabfeeac
    Issuer: CN=R3,O=Let's Encrypt,C=US
    Validity:
        Not Before: Wed Feb 17 14:46:25 UTC 2021
        Not After: Tue May 18 14:46:25 UTC 2021