• Hi, Pleskians! We are running a UX testing of our upcoming product intended for server management and monitoring.
    We would like to invite you to have a call with us and have some fun checking our prototype. The agenda is pretty simple - we bring new design and some scenarios that you need to walk through and succeed. We will be watching and taking insights for further development of the design.
    If you would like to participate, please use this link to book a meeting. We will sent the link to the clickable prototype at the meeting.
  • (Plesk for Windows):
    MySQL Connector/ODBC 3.51, 5.1, and 5.3 are no longer shipped with Plesk because they have reached end of life. MariaDB Connector/ODBC 64-bit 3.2.4 is now used instead.
  • The Horde webmail has been deprecated. Its complete removal is scheduled for April 2025. For details and recommended actions, see the Feature and Deprecation Plan.

Question Renewing Let's Encrypt with external DNS servers

klowet

Basic Pleskian
Server operating system version
Debian 12
Plesk version and microupdate number
18.0.60
Hi

A client has problems renewing the Let's Encrypt certificates for his websites.
He is using external DNS servers, not linked to his Plesk server.

** 'Lets Encrypt example.com' [days to expire: 27] **
[-] *.example.com
[-] example.com

Invalid response from https://acme-v02.api.letsencrypt.org/acme/authz-v3/33964115XXXX.
Details:
Type: urn:ietf: params:acme:error:unauthorized
Status: 403
Detail: Incorrect TXT record "UZ39H4i9vmwPb9fWX4qo_B2MTqBcf2oyIGOV6-_H2UU" found at _acme-challenge.example.com

Is the TXT _acme record updated every time the certificate is renewed? In other words, does he have to manually update the TXT records of his domains each 3 months?
Or is something else in my Plesk configuration wrong?

Thanks
 
Is the TXT _acme record updated every time the certificate is renewed? In other words, does he have to manually update the TXT records of his domains each 3 months?
Yes

Or is something else in my Plesk configuration wrong?
No

Only Let's Encrypt certificates with the wildcard option enabled need authentication/verification via DNS. If you don't want that, you or your client can manually re-issue an certificates for the domain without the Wildcard option enabled.
 
Hi
A client has problems renewing the Let's Encrypt certificates for his websites.
He is using external DNS servers, not linked to his Plesk server.
Is the TXT _acme record updated every time the certificate is renewed? In other words, does he have to manually update the TXT records of his domains each 3 months?
Or is something else in my Plesk configuration wrong?

Thanks

Only Let's Encrypt certificates with the wildcard option enabled need authentication/verification via DNS. If you don't want that, you or your client can manually re-issue an certificates for the domain without the Wildcard option enabled.
The correct replies from @Kaspar already answer your questions @klowet but FWIW we also use external DNS (exclusively) but we renew all our Let's Encrypt SSL Certificates (for non-wildcard certificates / wildcard certificates / SAN certificates) via cron and API access for all of the preceding by using acme.sh which works perfectly every time.
 
Only Let's Encrypt certificates with the wildcard option enabled need authentication/verification via DNS. If you don't want that, you or your client can manually re-issue an certificates for the domain without the Wildcard option enabled.
Ohh okay! That explains it. To be sure:

A wildcard certificate does require a new _acme TXT record each renewal. And a non-wildcard certificate does not. Correct?

When he should use the Plesk DNS and wildcard certificates, the _acme TXT is updated automatically. Correct?

Thanks
 
Ohh okay! That explains it. To be sure:

A wildcard certificate does require a new _acme TXT record each renewal. And a non-wildcard certificate does not. Correct?
Yes. However to clarify this a bit further and avoid any confusion: a non-wildcard certificate does not require a DNS record at all.

When he should use the Plesk DNS and wildcard certificates, the _acme TXT is updated automatically. Correct?
Yes
 
Back
Top