ACERTMGR

This is an automated certificate manager using ACME/letsencrypt.

Running ACERTMGR

The main file acertmgr.py is intended to be run regularly (e.g. as daily cron job) as root.

Requirements

• Python (2.7+ and 3.3+ should work)
• cryptography

Optional packages

• PyYAML (when using config files in YAML format)
• dnspython (required for the dns.nsupdate mode)

Initial Setup

You should decide which challenge mode you want to use with acertmgr:

• webdir: In this mode, challenges are put into a directory, and served by an existing webserver
• standalone: In this mode, challenges are completed by acertmgr directly. This starts a webserver to solve the challenges, which can be used standalone or together with an existing webserver that forwards request to a specified local port
• webdir/standalone: Make sure that the webdir directory exists in both cases (Note: the standalone webserver does not yet serve the files in situation)
• dns.*: This mode puts the challenge into a TXT record for the domain (usually _acme-challenge.) where it will be parsed from by the authority
• dns.* (Alias mode): Can be used similar to the above but allows redirection of _acme-challenge. to any other (updatable domain) defined in dns_updatedomain via CNAME (e.g. _acme-challenge.example.net IN CNAME bla.foo.bar with config dns_updatedomain="bla.foo.bar" in config)
• dns.nsupdate: Updates the TXT record using RFC2136 (with dnspython)

You can optionally provide the key files for the ACME protocol, if you do not they will be automatically created:

• The account key is expected at /etc/acme/account.key
• The domain key is expected at /etc/acme/server.key (Note: only one domain key is required for all domains used in the same instance of acertmgr)
• If you are missing these keys, they will be created for you or you can create them using openssl genrsa 4096 > /etc/acme/account.key and openssl genrsa 4096 > /etc/acme/server.key respectively
• Do not forget to set proper permissions of the keys using chmod 0400 /etc/acme/*.key

Finally, you need to setup the configuration files, as shown in the next section. While testing, you can use the acme-staging authority instead, in order to avoid issuing too many certificates.

Configuration

Unless specified with a commandline parameter (see acertmgr.py --help) the optional global configuration is read from '/etc/acertmgr/acertmgr.conf'. Domains for which certificates should be obtained/renewed should be configured in /etc/acertmgr/*.conf (the global configuration is automatically excluded if it is in the same directory).

All configuration files can use yaml (requires PyYAML) or json syntax.

• Example optional global configuration file (YAML syntax):

---
# Required: Authority API endpoint to use
authority: "https://acme-v01.api.letsencrypt.org"
#authority: "https://acme-staging.api.letsencrypt.org"

# Optional: account_key location. This defaults to "/etc/acme/account.key"
account_key: "/etc/acme/acc.key"

# Optional: global server_key location. Otherwise separate key per server
#server_key: "/etc/acme/serv.key"

# Optional: global challenge handling mode with parameters
#mode: webdir
#webdir: /var/www/acme-challenge/
#mode: standalone
#port: 13135

• Example domain configuration file (YAML syntax):

---

mail.example.com:
- path: /etc/postfix/ssl/mail.key
  user: root
  group: root
  perm: '400'
  format: key
  action: '/etc/init.d/postfix reload'
- path: /etc/postfix/ssl/mail.crt
  user: root
  group: root
  perm: '400'
  format: crt,ca
  action: '/etc/init.d/postfix reload'

jabber.example.com:
- path: /etc/ejabberd/server.pem
  user: jabber
  group: jabber
  perm: '400'
  format: key,crt,ca
  action: '/etc/init.d/ejabberd restart'

# this will create a certificate with subject alternative names
www.example.com example.com:
- path: /var/www/ssl/cert.pem
  user: apache
  group: apache
  perm: '400'
  action: '/etc/init.d/apache2 reload'
  format: crt,ca
- path: /var/www/ssl/key.pem
  user: apache
  group: apache
  perm: '400'
  action: '/etc/init.d/apache2 reload'
  format: key

# this will create a certificate with subject alternative names
# using a different challenge handler for one domain
mail.example.com smtp.example.com webmail.example.net:
- mode: dns.nsupdate
  nsupdate_server: ns1.example.com
  nsupdate_keyname: mail
  nsupdate_keyvalue: Test1234512359==
- domain: webmail.example.net
  mode: dns.nsupdate
  nsupdate_server: ns1.example.net
  nsupdate_keyname: webmail.
  nsupdate_keyfile: /etc/nsupdate.key
  dns_updatedomain: webmail.example.net
- path: /etc/postfix/ssl/mail.key
  user: root
  group: root
  perm: '400'
  format: key
  action: '/etc/init.d/postfix reload'
- path: /etc/postfix/ssl/mail.crt
  user: root
  group: root
  perm: '400'
  format: crt,ca
  action: '/etc/init.d/postfix reload'

• Example optional global configuration file (JSON syntax):

---
{
"mode": "standalone",
"port": "80",

"account_key": "/etc/acme/acc.key",
"server_key": "/etc/acme/serv.key",

"webdir": "/var/www/acme-challenge/",
"authority": "https://acme-v01.api.letsencrypt.org",
}

• Example domain configuration file (JSON syntax):

---
{
"mail.example.com": [
{ "path": "/etc/postfix/ssl/mail.key",
  "user": "root",
  "group": "root",
  "perm": "400",
  "format": "key",
  "action": "/etc/init.d/postfix reload" },
{ "path": "/etc/postfix/ssl/mail.crt",
  "user": "root",
  "group": "root",
  "perm": "400",
  "format": "crt,ca",
  "action": "/etc/init.d/postfix reload" }
],
"jabber.example.com": [
{ "path": "/etc/ejabberd/server.pem",
  "user": "jabber",
  "group": "jabber",
  "perm": "400",
  "format": "key,crt,ca",
  "action": "/etc/init.d/ejabberd restart" }
],
"www.example.com example.com": [
{ "path": "/var/www/ssl/cert.pem",
  "user": "apache",
  "group": "apache",
  "perm": "400",
  "action": "/etc/init.d/apache2 reload",
  "format": "crt,ca" },
{ "path": "/var/www/ssl/key.pem",
  "user": "apache",
  "group": "apache",
  "perm": "400",
  "action": "/etc/init.d/apache2 reload",
  "format": "key" }
]
}

Security

Please keep the following in mind when using this software:

• DO read the source code, since it has to be run as root
• Make sure that your configuration files are NOT writable by other users - arbitrary commands can be executed after updating certificates