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17 changes: 11 additions & 6 deletions tutorials/creating_ssl_certificates.md
Original file line number Diff line number Diff line change
Expand Up @@ -53,17 +53,22 @@ certbot -d example.com --manual --preferred-challenges dns certonly

### Auto Renewal

You'll also probably want to configure the automatic renewal of certificates to prevent unexpected certificate expirations.
You can open crontab with `sudo crontab -e` and add the line from below to the bottom of it for attempting renewal every day at 23 (11 PM).
On modern Linux distributions, Certbot usually creates a systemd timer automatically to renew certificates before expiration.
You can verify this by running `systemctl list-timers | grep certbot`.

Deploy hook would restart the Nginx service to apply a new certificate when it's renewed successfully. Change `nginx` in the restart command to suit your own needs, such as to `apache` or `wings`.

For advanced users, we suggest installing and using [acme.sh](https://acme.sh)
which provides more options, and is much more powerful than certbot.
Example output:
```
Thu 2026-05-07 05:15:00 CEST 11h left Wed 2026-05-06 17:00:00 CEST 16min ago certbot.timer certbot.service
```

If no timer exists, or your system does not use systemd, you can configure automatic renewal manually using cron.
Open the root crontab with `sudo crontab -e` and add the following line at the very bottom of it to attempt renewal every day at 23 (11 PM):
``` text
0 23 * * * certbot renew --quiet --deploy-hook "systemctl restart nginx"
```
The deploy hook restarts Nginx after a successful renewal so the new certificate is loaded. Replace `nginx` with another service if needed, such as `apache` or `caddy`.

Advanced users may also prefer [acme.sh](https://acme.sh), which provides additional features and configuration options.

### Troubleshooting

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