Last post I mentioned how easy it was to setup SSL with AWS Certificate Manager.

But what about all your other servers? Are we going to cough up $16 per year for a single-domain SSL certificate from Gandi?

Negatory.

Let’s talk about Let’s Encrypt. I downloaded their Linux version and got down to business.

Here is a running tally of my steps.

1. Google “nginx letsencrypt” and find this DigitalOcean guide.
2. Stop my nginx server to free up port 80, which is used in the letsencrypt process.
3. run $ ./letsencrypt-auto certonly –standalone
4. Enter my domain name.
5. Make 15 seconds worth of changes to my server blocks in nginx.
   1. Redirect port 80 -> 443
   2. Setup a block for port 443 SSL, all in the guide
6. $ sudo service nginx start

It took 5 minutes to fully setup.

I love it when life is stupid easy.