ansible-letsencrypt

An ansible role to generate TLS certificates and get them signed by Let's Encrypt.

Currently attempts first to use the webroot authenticator, then if that fails to create certificates, it will use the standalone authenticator. This is handy for generating certs on a fresh machine before the web server has been configured or even installed.

Supported platforms

• Debian Jessie
• Debian Stretch
• Debian Buster
• Ubuntu Xenial
• Ubuntu Focal
• Ubuntu Jammy

On other platforms this role will try to install letsencrypt using pip, which is not officially supported and may break over upgrades at least.

If you test it on other platforms please let me know the results (positive or otherwise) so I can document them here and/or fix the issue.

Requires Ansible >= 2.0

Usage

First, read Let's Encrypt's TOS and EULA. Only proceed if you agree to them.

The following variables are available:

letsencryptwebrootpath is the root path that gets served by your web server. Defaults to /var/www.

letsencryptemail needs to be set to your email address. Let's Encrypt wants it. Defaults to webmaster@{{ ansiblefqdn }}. If you really want to register without providing an email address, define the variabe letsencryptnoemail.

letsencryptrsakey_size allows to specify a size for the generated key.

letsencryptcertdomains is a list of domains you wish to get a certificate for. It defaults to a single item with the value of {{ ansible_fqdn }}.

letsencryptinstalldirectory should probably be left alone, but if you set it, it will change where the letsencrypt program is installed.

letsencryptrenewalcommand_args add arguments to the letsencrypt renewal command that gets run using cron. For example, use the renewal hooks to restart a web server.

letsencryptstandalonecommand_args adds arguments to the standalone authentication method. This is mostly useful for specifying supported challenges, such as --standalone-supported-challenges tls-sni-01 to limit the authentication to port 443 if something is already running on 80 or vice versa.

letsencrypt_server sets the alternative auth server if needed. For example, during tests it's set to https://acme-staging.api.letsencrypt.org/directory to use the staging server (far higher rate limits, but certs are not trusted). It is not set by default.

sslcertificate and sslcertificate_key symlinks the certificates to provided path if both are set.

The Let's Encrypt client will put the certificate and accessories in /etc/letsencrypt/live/<first listed domain>/. For more info, see the Let's Encrypt documentation.

Example Playbook

---
 - hosts: tls_servers
   user: root
   roles:
     - role: letsencrypt
       letsencryptwebrootpath: /var/www/html
       letsencrypt_email: user@example.net
       letsencryptcertdomains:
        - www.example.net
        - example.net
       letsencryptrenewalcommand_args: '--renew-hook "systemctl restart nginx"'