hatchcert

Hatchcert is a config-driven tool to issue certificates using the ACME protocol. It is intended to be easily deployable using configuration management systems such as Ansible. This tool is based on the lego library.

Getting started

Build hatchcert using make hatchcert or create a deb file using make deb.

Create a configuration file, by default located in /etc/hatchcert/config:

# Specify the ACME service to use
# hatchcert will use Let's Encrypt production by default
#acme-url https://acme-staging-v02.api.letsencrypt.org/directory

# Confirm that you have read and accepted the terms of service of the ACME
# service
#accept-tos

# Specify an email that will be used to contact you, e.g. when your
# certificate is about to expire
email hostmaster@example.com

# Use built-in HTTP server (listen on :80 by default); useful when
# bootstrapping
#http

# Specify the root directory for the HTTP challenge solver
webroot /run/acme

# Optionally specify which chain you prefer
#preferred-chain ISRG Root X1

# Specify domains to issue certificates for
domain example.com

# You can also request multiple names in one certificate
domain example.net www.example.net

# Optionally specify an executable file that will be called if, during
# reconcile, a certificate was updated. This is typically used in order to
# reload the certificates in various daemons. It is not called when you
# forcefully issue certificates.
#update-hook /etc/hatchcert/update-hook

Hatchcert is currently in development. To get started:

• Create the appropriate configuration in /etc/hatchcert/config
• Run hatchcert once by hand, if you want to check if your configuration is valid; this will immediately register an account with the ACME server
• Optionally copy the update-hook script from dist/update-hook to /etc/hatchcert/update-hook
• Copy the cronjob from dist/hatchcert.cron to /etc/cron.d/hatchcert (adjust the cron schedule as required)

Running hatchcert as non-root user

Running hatchcert as root is the easiest option, but not strictly required:

• Create the /var/lib/acme directory in such a way that your desired user can write to it (or specify an alternative base path using the -path parameter)
• Modify the cronjob so that hatchcert runs as the desired user
• Ensure your update-hook script runs in such a way that it can reload services (for example, with the appropriate sudo configuration)

Output and storage

The output directory structure produced by hatchcert is comparable to that of other tools, such as acmetool:

• By default, all data is stored relative to /var/lib/acme
• Account information (including the private key) is written to ./account
• Individual certificates are stored in ./certs/
• A directory of symlinks pointing to the latest certificate is maintained in ./live/ for each (sub)domain

TODO

• Helper tool to read and accept the terms of service
• Private key permissions
• Migrate away from lego

ACME challenge solvers

HTTP (http-01) using the built-in server

To use the built-in webserver (for example, if you're not already running a webserver), use the http keyword in the configuration. Specify a bind address with http 10.1.2.3:80 or the default port 80 will be used.

HTTP (http-01) using an external webserver

Hatchcert can write HTTP challenge files to a webroot using the webroot keyword. A subdirectory called .well-known/acme-challenge/ will be created relative to this directory, which needs to be served over HTTP/HTTPS.

For example, to use the webroot challenge provider with nginx with webroot /run/acme, create /etc/nginx/snippets/acme.conf containing:

# Let's encrypt
location /.well-known/acme-challenge/ {
    alias /run/acme/.well-known/acme-challenge/;
}

Then, include this snippet in every server block you want to issue certificates for. For example:

server {
    server_name example.com;
    listen 0.0.0.0:443 ssl http2;
    listen [::]:443 ssl http2;
    add_header Strict-Transport-Security max-age=31536000;

    include snippets/acme.conf;
    ssl_certificate /var/lib/acme/live/example.com/fullchain;
    ssl_certificate_key /var/lib/acme/live/example.com/privkey;

    root /var/www/example.com/htdocs;
}

DNS (dns-01)

Hatchcert supports the numerous DNS providers that the lego library supports. Refer to the documentation at https://go-acme.github.io/lego/dns/ for the names of the providers and their required configuration. Specify the name/code of the provider using the dns keyword and specify required environment values using the env keyword.

ACME DNS example

The following example shows how to use the ACME DNS provider:

# The provider is configured via environment variables
env ACME_DNS_API_BASE=https://dnsauth.example.com/
env ACME_DNS_STORAGE_PATH=/etc/hatchcert/acmedns.json
dns acme-dns

domain *.example.com

You can place preexisting ACME DNS credentials in /etc/hatchcert/acmedns.json:

{"example.com": {
   "fulldomain": "04b30265-01ad-4275-88f2-3aaffe62d61e.dnsauth.example.com",
   "subdomain": "04b30265-01ad-4275-88f2-3aaffe62d61e",
   "username": "myusername",
   "password": "justAnExample"
}}

Notes:

• For wildcard certificates, the domain name in the acmedns.json config is without the wildcard
• The library lego uses for ACME DNS (goacmedns) has changed the format of the credentials file in a without backwards compatibility (lowercase keys)