Nginx Proxy Manager VS acme.sh

I discovered these 3 amazing projects recently:

Cryptpad, essentially google docs/sheets/forms e2e encrypted. It does include collaboration. https://github.com/cryptpad/cryptpad

Immich, google photos self hostable, with share options https://github.com/immich-app/immich

Nginxproxymanager manages certificates and proxies to self hosted stuff through nginx https://github.com/NginxProxyManager/nginx-proxy-manager

Great self hosting stuff!

Nginx Proxy Manager

Take a look at NginxProxyManager. This would give you the opportunity to put everything in the form of service1.domain.com , service2.domain.com ,etc.

Prime example: Nginx Proxy Manager is often recommended in the sub. The latest minor release came with breaking changes (so already ignoring semver). I bet you many people were running on latest and then had broken stuff: https://github.com/NginxProxyManager/nginx-proxy-manager/releases/tag/v2.10.0

I started looking into how to make add dynamic IPs to NPM access lists. I came across a couple of GitHub issues (1, 2) on the topic. It looks like people have solved the problem, but not in a complete way without modifying the NPM docker image. I did not want to do that, so decided looking into writing a separate script.

Here is the (NPM) GitHub issue where the "fork of a fork" image came into existence (lepresidente/nginx-proxy-manager). It has some interesting discussions about the challenges of having NPM and CrowdSec coexist and cooperate.

Agree with this, myQ is such a dumpster fire. It needs to have an the ability to be managed over the local network instead of requiring the garage door and app connect to their server.

My very first experience with myQ was figuring out that their IP blocklist provider, brightcloud, blocks anything with the word "proxy" - including the default "it works" page for Nginx Proxy Manager [1]. And they have no way of overriding this to actually provide service if someone turns out to be a legitimate customer.

[1]: https://github.com/NginxProxyManager/nginx-proxy-manager/dis...

Edit: If you're using Nginx Proxy Manager there seems to be open PR for support for proxy protocol https://github.com/NginxProxyManager/nginx-proxy-manager/pull/1882 however in the comments there's a name of repository with this PR merged.

As a result, any certificates issued (or renewed) after Feb 8th will not work on older Android devices (< 7.1.1), unless the ACME client has been configure to request an alternate certificate chain. The "alternate chain" workaround will also stop working on June 6th.

I need to support these older Android devices so I am looking for alternatives. I have seen ZeroSSL mentioned a few times; it is also the default CA for acme.sh (the ACME client I am using nowadays) [2]. They have a number of paid plans but ACME certificates are free [3].

I'll be testing this over the next few days, but I would also like to ask if people here have experience with ZeroSSL (good or bad :-). Any feedback would be helpful.

[1]: https://letsencrypt.org/2023/07/10/cross-sign-expiration.html

[2]: https://github.com/acmesh-official/acme.sh

[3]: https://zerossl.com/documentation/acme/

Huh, the environment variable thing was specifically aimed at acme.sh which rather arbitrarily changed the config value from ACMEDNS_UPDATE_URL to ACMEDNS_BASE_URL, never acknowledged this in a changelog and then silently failed after an automatic upgrade as recommended by the default install:

https://github.com/acmesh-official/acme.sh/commit/2ce145f359...

It's also cleared out my .account.conf files when run on the suggested cron.

I've started using updown which also monitors my TLS certs simply because I no longer trust the process to work as documented.

It depends on your provider though. I can tell from experience that with OVH and their API, it's been easy to set up the automatic renewal via DNS verification. Apparently, the official client has support for the DNS API of 159 providers: https://github.com/acmesh-official/acme.sh/wiki/dnsapi

For the few people here that happen to run a self-hosted email server with acme.sh for TLS key/cert generation and Cloudflare for DNS management, I have made a tool that i personally use to get a perfect 100% score on Internet.nl's email test.

All of this is to say it's a decent amount of work to save the hassle of deploying certbot or acme.sh on the remote machines, pick your poison.

Here is a really solid guide for setting up the ACME DNS challenge with pretty much any DNS provider

People wonder why I like using the shell-based ACME client like dehydrated (or acme.sh):

* https://packages.debian.org/search?keywords=dehydrated

* https://github.com/acmesh-official/acme.sh

Versus the official client certbot:

* https://packages.debian.org/search?keywords=python3-certbot

A kludgy as very long shell scripts are (thought to be), I have a better chance of being able to go through all the code and understand it than a dozen(+) Python libraries.

So today I figured out how to install acme.sh to my hosted server space for my websites, and used acme to issue an SSL certificate and install it for a domain. It uses LetsEncrypt, and ZeroSSL for the default Certificate Authority (CA). Then I notice that ZeroSSL only allows a free 90 day certificate, and only 3 of those before you have to pay. Is there any way to generate actual free SSL certificates that do not expire for a year or more and that can be renewed free? I have heard that most hosting plans now provide free SSL certs, so is my hosting company just providing cheap hosting but making money on the backend by charging for SSL certs?

acme.sh is a lightweight Unix shell script for automatic issuance and renewal of free certificates in a Unix environment. It's compatible with Bash, dash, and sh; Docker/IPv6 ready; requires no external dependencies; and can issue, renew, and install certificates without the need for root or sudoer access. Thanks for this recommendation go to blitznogger.

My vps is located in Japan so there shouldn't be any trouble grabbing files from github and such but it obviously timed out every time the script tried to grab acme.sh's repository. Has anyone tried this script lately with success?