Secure Your Site: Install Let's Encrypt SSL with LAMP Stack on Rocky Linux 8

#### Prerequisites Before you begin, ensure you have: - A server running Rocky Linux 8 with LAMP stack installed - A registered domain name pointing to your server's IP address - SSH access to your server with sudo privileges - Basic familiarity with the command line on Linux #### Step 1: Install Certbot Certbot is a tool for obtaining and managing Let's Encrypt SSL certificates. Install Certbot and Apache plugin on Rocky Linux 8: ```bash sudo dnf install certbot python3-certbot-apache ``` #### Step 2: Configure Apache Virtual Hosts Ensure your Apache virtual host configuration is set up correctly to serve your website over HTTPS. Edit your virtual host configuration file (`/etc/httpd/conf.d/your_domain.conf`): ```apache ServerName your_domain.com ServerAlias www.your_domain.com DocumentRoot /var/www/html/your_site_directory ErrorLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/error.log CustomLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/access.log combined ``` #### Step 3: Obtain SSL Certificate Run Certbot to obtain a new SSL certificate for your domain: ```bash sudo certbot --apache -d your_domain.com -d www.your_domain.com ``` Follow the prompts to configure SSL certificate options. #### Step 4: Verify SSL Configuration Certbot will automatically configure Apache to use the SSL certificate. Test your SSL configuration: ```bash sudo apachectl configtest ``` #### Step 5: Automatically Renew SSL Certificate Let's Encrypt certificates expire every 90 days. Set up a cron job to automatically renew them: ```bash sudo crontab -e ``` Add the following line to renew certificates twice a day: ```bash 0 */12 * * * certbot renew --quiet ``` #### Step 6: Test HTTPS Access Access your website using `https://your_domain.com` in a web browser. Verify that your site is now served over HTTPS with a valid SSL certificate. #### Conclusion You have successfully secured your LAMP-based website on Rocky Linux 8 with Let's Encrypt SSL/TLS certificate. Your visitors can now access your site securely over HTTPS. **Additional Resources:** - **Certbot Documentation:** [https://certbot.eff.org/docs/](https://certbot.eff.org/docs/) - **Rocky Linux Documentation:** [https://docs.rockylinux.org/](https://docs.rockylinux.org/)