How do I add a custom/not-LE SSL certificate in v4?

v4
#1

I recently tried EE4 on a fresh Ubuntu 18.04 LTE. I have a wildcard SSL certificate from Comodo which I want to use, so I don’t want to use the Let’s Encrypt options. The site domain is elanders.wallmander.io and it’s a wp multisite subdir install. The http version of the site works but, not https. I’m just getting a ERR_CONNECTION_REFUSED in the browser when navigating to https://elanders.wallmander.io/.

I went through these steps after installing EE v4:

  1. ee site create elanders.wallmander.io --type=wp --mu=subdir --cache
  2. After a successful installation (http works), I added elanders.wallmander.io.crt and elanders.wallmander.io.key to /opt/easyengine/services/nginx-proxy/certs/
  3. I copied /opt/easyengine/services/nginx-proxy/conf.d/default.conf to a new conf: elanders.wallmander.io.conf
  4. I altered elanders.wallmander.io.conf so it looks like this:
# If we receive X-Forwarded-Proto, pass it through; otherwise, pass along the
# scheme used to connect to this server
map $http_x_forwarded_proto $proxy_x_forwarded_proto {
  default $http_x_forwarded_proto;
  ''      $scheme;
}
# If we receive X-Forwarded-Port, pass it through; otherwise, pass along the
# server port the client connected to
map $http_x_forwarded_port $proxy_x_forwarded_port {
  default $http_x_forwarded_port;
  ''      $server_port;
}
# If we receive Upgrade, set Connection to "upgrade"; otherwise, delete any
# Connection header that may have been passed to this server
map $http_upgrade $proxy_connection {
  default upgrade;
  '' close;
}
# Apply fix for very long server names
server_names_hash_bucket_size 128;
# Default dhparam
ssl_dhparam /etc/nginx/dhparam/dhparam.pem;
# Set appropriate X-Forwarded-Ssl header
map $scheme $proxy_x_forwarded_ssl {
  default off;
  https on;
}
gzip_types text/plain text/css application/javascript application/json application/x-javascript text/xml application/xml application/xml+rss text/javascript;
log_format vhost '$host $remote_addr - $remote_user [$time_local] '
                 '"$request" $status $body_bytes_sent '
                 '"$http_referer" "$http_user_agent"';
access_log off;
error_log /dev/stderr;
resolver 127.0.0.11;
# HTTP 1.1 support
proxy_http_version 1.1;
proxy_buffering off;
proxy_set_header Host $http_host;
proxy_set_header Upgrade $http_upgrade;
proxy_set_header Connection $proxy_connection;
proxy_set_header X-Real-IP $remote_addr;
proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-For $proxy_add_x_forwarded_for;
proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-Proto $proxy_x_forwarded_proto;
proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-Ssl $proxy_x_forwarded_ssl;
proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-Port $proxy_x_forwarded_port;
proxy_set_header X-Original-URI $request_uri;
# Mitigate httpoxy attack (see README for details)
proxy_set_header Proxy "";
server {
        server_name _; # This is just an invalid value which will never trigger on a real hostname.
        listen 80;
        access_log /var/log/nginx/access.log vhost;
        return 503;
}
# elanders.wallmander.io/
upstream elanders.wallmander.io-42099b4af021e53fd8fd4e056c2568d7c2e3ffa8 {
        # Cannot connect to network of this container
        server 127.0.0.1 down;
        ## Can be connected with "ee-global-frontend-network" network
        # elanderswallmanderio_nginx_1
        server 172.19.0.3:80;
        # Cannot connect to network of this container
        server 127.0.0.1 down;
}
server {
        server_name elanders.wallmander.io;
        listen 443 ;
        access_log /var/log/nginx/access.log vhost;
        server_name elanders.wallmander.io;
        ssl on;
        ssl_certificate /opt/easyengine/services/nginx-proxy/certs/elanders.wallmander.io.crt;
        ssl_certificate_key /opt/easyengine/services/nginx-proxy/certs/elanders.wallmander.io.key;
        location / {
                proxy_pass https://elanders.wallmander.io-42099b4af021e53fd8fd4e056c2568d7c2e3ffa8/;
        }
        location /ee-admin/ {
                proxy_pass http://elanders.wallmander.io-42099b4af021e53fd8fd4e056c2568d7c2e3ffa8;
                auth_basic      "Restricted elanders.wallmander.io  Admin Tools";
                auth_basic_user_file    /etc/nginx/htpasswd/default_admin_tools;
                include /etc/nginx/vhost.d/default_acl;
        }
}
  1. ee site reload elanders.wallmander.io
  2. ee service restart nginx-proxy

The result is that both the http and https URL:s show ERR_CONNECTION_REFUSED

What am I doing wrong? I couldn’t find a guide for configuring v4 for a custom SSL so I just made a wild guess how to do it.

1 Like
#2

Did anyone manage to install any other certificate than Let’s Encrypt? How did you do it? I can only see information about LE in the docs, but there are soo many other kinds of certificates.

After reading a little, maybe I’m getting closer to the truth. So I need to enable ssl at the time of creating a new site? Does it mean that the ssl flag needs to be specified? And read something about ssl=inherit. Could that be the answer? Like so:

ee site create abc.example.com --type=wp --mu=subdir --cache --ssl=inherit --wildcard

The wildcard flag, I guess it must be there to support subdomains like blog.example.com?

And if the above is correct, where do I add the ssl keys and configure nginx to find them? Do I need to do that before creating the site?

#3

The LE certs are located in /var/lib/docker/volumes/global-nginx-proxy_certs/_data, and the global nginx.conf in /var/lib/docker/volumes/global-nginx-proxy_confd/_data/default.conf.

You could try creating an SSL site, then put the replacement certs in the above directory and change the paths in /var/lib/docker/volumes/global-nginx-proxy_confd/_data/default.conf:

ssl_certificate /etc/nginx/certs/example.com_replacement.crt;
ssl_certificate_key /etc/nginx/certs/example.com_replacement.key;
ssl_trusted_certificate /etc/nginx/certs/example.com_replacement.chain.pem;

I’m sure someone with a better understanding of SSL/EE’s SSL setup can help further… I’m just guessing. One problem I can see with doing the above is EE’s auto LE renewal feature might mess it up down the line.

#4

hello @purbeckpixels,
I did this change of uploading the certificates to the location /var/lib/docker/volumes/global-nginx-proxy_certs/_data and updated the links in /var/lib/docker/volumes/global-nginx-proxy_confd/_data/default.conf. When i reloaded the site, it was showing connection refused. restarting nginx-proxy service shows up as successful, but site does not load. When i reverted the changes back to the lets-encrypt certificates, the site loaded.
So how can we use custom ssl certificates in place of letsencrypt ones?

#5

Hey guys,

AFAIK, the way to use custom SSL certs is to create your site with the --ssl=self option and then replace the self-signed certificates with your own.

You can find the location of the self-signed certs for your site here:

/opt/easyengine/services/nginx-proxy/certs

Replace those with your custom certs, and then reload the global NGiNX proxy using the command ee service reload nginx-proxy and you’ll be good to go.

2 Likes
#7

By your directive, it mean that, at creating n of the site, one need to use self signed certificate flag. What about site that has already been created using letsencrypt flag, do I need to recreate the site to use self signed certificate?

#8

is there Anyone known the way to update SSL LE to SLL custom certificate for exist sites. please help me.

#9