Certificate Settings

Certificate entries have settings which identify the certificate and how ACME can validate ownership of that identity.

General

Name

A short name for the certificate used as an internal identifier. The ACME package uses this name to create or overwrite a Certificate Manager entry when issuing or renewing the certificate.

Description

A longer string describing the certificate and its purpose.

Status

Whether this certificate is considered active.

Active

This entry will be processed manually and by scheduled renewals (General Settings)

Disabled

This entry will be ignored

Private Key

The type and strength of private key to use with this certificate. Can be either RSA or ECDSA in several pre-defined sizes. Select Custom to manually enter a private key generated elsewhere

2048-bit RSA is an acceptable default choice, but larger keys are more secure.

Last Renewal

Static text output showing the last date and time the ACME package renewed this certificate.

Renewal Threshold

Days of remaining lifetime at which ACME will renew the certificate. Defaults to 2/3 the lifetime or 30 days if the lifetime cannot be determined. The ACME package ignores this value if it is longer than the certificate lifetime.

Note

Certificate lifetimes vary by ACME server and certificate profile. Check with the ACME servers to determine their validity intervals.

ACME Server / Certificate Authority

ACME Account Key

The Account Key ACME will use to issue this certificate. This also determines the ACME Server/CA for this certificate.

Certificate Profile

If the ACME Server provides multiple profiles, this field selects an alternate certificate profile which changes properties of the certificate in various ways.

For example, Let’s Encrypt offers profiles such as: classic (default), shortlived, tlsserver. The shortlived profile has a lifetime of only six days, but supports IP address SAN entries. The tlsserver profile is a preview of future default values for TLS server certificates before they become default values.

Leave blank to use the default profile for the CA.

Preferred Chain

If the ACME CA provides multiple trust chains, this field allows the user to choose an alternate preferred chain. This utilizes a case-insensitive substring match to locate a chain.

Use Address Family

Instructs ACME to use a specific address family when making requests to the ACME server where possible.

Validation

SAN List

A list of all Subject Alternative Name (SAN) entries to include in this certificate. In most cases these will be fully qualified domain names (FQDNs) such as www.example.com or wildcard specifications (e.g. *.example.com). ACME servers may support other SANs in certain cases. For example, Let’s Encrypt allows IP Address SANs when using the shortlived Certificate Profile.

SAN entries can use the same or different update methods. The ACME server must individually validate each SAN before it will issue or renew a certificate.

Note

The ACME server may limit the number of SAN entries and their contents. For example, Let’s Encrypt limits a certificate to at most 100 SAN entries. Actalis only allows domain names and www. hostnames.

Status

Whether this SAN is active in the certificate

SAN

The value for a SAN entry in this certificate (e.g. www.example.com)

Validation Method

The method that the ACME server can use to validate ownership of this domain. Method settings are described in (Validation Methods)

Click fa-plus Add for additional SAN entries

DNS-based validation methods have common settings which appear for all types:

DNS Alias

An alternative domain name used by the validation process. Instead of updating the DNS record for Domain Name directly, the package uses this domain name is used instead. See DNS Alias Mode for details.

DNS Alias Mode

When set, controls whether the DNS alias mode used is Challenge Alias (Unchecked, Default) or Domain Alias (Checked). See DNS Alias Mode for details.

DNS Sleep

The amount of time the ACME validation process will wait after making DNS changes before attempting to validate. Some DNS services take a few minutes to propagate entries after making backend changes.

The default settings are typically sufficient, but slower providers may require a longer sleep time.

Post-Renew Actions

Actions List

Commands the ACME package runs after the successfully renewing the certificate.

Status

Whether this action is active.

Command

Full path to command and arguments, service name, or name of script.

Method

Defines how the Command is executed by the package.

Shell Command

The Command is a full path to a shell command and its arguments.

PHP Command Script

The Command value is run as PHP code.

Restart Local Service

The name of a local service to restart.

Restart Remote Service

The name of a remote service to restart via XMLRPC. This utilizes the system XMLRPC sync configuration.

The GUI help text for this option includes several examples of common actions.