Testing letsencrypt without a domain?

lmcilwain · 03-02-2016, 12:35 PM

Is it possible to test letsencrypt without a domain? I have a feeling the answer is no but I wanted to confirm this.

I would like to do a proof of concept where I attempt to install letsencrypt and make sure I don't hose my server.

I don't want to have to purchase a domain just to do this test.

Anyone have any ideas of how I can do this?

Thanks,

TenTenths · 03-03-2016, 09:34 AM

From what I can see "letsencrypt" works by using its own http listener to check that you really do own the domain name by making an http call back to the listener. So I'm not sure how you could get around that. I can tell you that I've successfully installed and used it with my production servers. If you're going to do this just for testing and on a different server then you could create subdomain.yourdomain.com and use that.

lmcilwain · 03-03-2016, 09:48 AM

Makes sense. I will give that a shot.

Thanks for the response.

TenTenths · 03-03-2016, 09:57 AM

Certs and renewal seem to work quite nicely and I can get an A+ rating from www.ssllabs.com with a letsencrypt cert.

lmcilwain · 03-03-2016, 10:04 AM

That is definitely a good thing to hear. I was wondering about how well they were accepted in the wild. I'm looking forward to getting this implemented.

TenTenths · 03-03-2016, 10:10 AM

I've also tested the letsencrypt client using the "--webroot" option and it didn't require me to stop/start apache.

This is on a CentOS 6 server.

lmcilwain · 03-03-2016, 07:12 PM

Ok, I have to admit. This is some really cool stuff. With the hope of the following write, I was able to get up and running on ubuntu without any issue at all.

https://www.digitalocean.com/communi...n-ubuntu-14-04

I'm really excited about this!