housecarl/docs/certificates.md

The web UI's certificate

Housecarl can serve its web UI and API over HTTPS in two ways:

• A certificate you manage: tls.cert_file and tls.key_file in housecarl.yaml. housecarld rereads them when they change (configuration.md).
• A certificate it gets itself from Let's Encrypt (or another ACME CA), with Jarl publishing the DNS-01 challenge. That's this page.

With DNS-01 the web UI doesn't need to be reachable from the internet. fw.adbraun.lol can point at a private address and the certificate still works on your network. Only the challenge record has to be visible on the internet, and Jarl puts it in every view that has your zone.

Setting it up

1. Connect Housecarl to Jarl with a user and a token that may only write Housecarl's own challenge record: jarl.md.

2. Give your web UI a name in DNS, such as fw.adbraun.lol with the Housecarl server's address, in Jarl. It is the name you will type in the browser.

3. Configure the certificate in /etc/housecarl/housecarl.yaml:

   listen: ["192.168.1.2:8070"]        # an address your browser can reach
   tls:
     acme:
       domain: fw.adbraun.lol
       email: you@adbraun.lol          # Let's Encrypt writes here if something is wrong
       directory: letsencrypt-staging  # first; see below
       agree_tos: true                 # you accept Let's Encrypt's terms of service
   jarl:
     server: https://dns.adbraun.lol:8053
     token_file: /etc/housecarl/jarl.token
   

4. Restart housecarld (sudo systemctl restart housecarl), and check:

   sudo hc cert check
   

5. Watch it get the certificate: sudo hc cert, or Server → Certificate in the web UI. Then open https://fw.adbraun.lol:8070/.

6. Switch to the real CA. The staging certificate works, but browsers warn about it, because Let's Encrypt's staging service isn't trusted. It's there to prove everything works without touching Let's Encrypt's rate limits. Once it does, set directory: letsencrypt, restart, and Housecarl gets a trusted certificate right away.

Until the first certificate arrives, the web UI is served over plain HTTP. housecarld switches to HTTPS on the same port without a restart. From then on, plain HTTP is redirected to HTTPS, except from the server itself (127.0.0.1), so tools there keep working.

Checking

Before every certificate order, and whenever you ask (hc cert check, or Test in the web UI), Housecarl checks the whole path without asking the CA. Let's Encrypt allows only 5 failed validations per name per hour, so a broken setup shouldn't find out the hard way.

Step	What it checks
Jarl	Jarl answers at jarl.server, and the token is valid (it says whose it is)
Zone	a primary zone the token can see holds _acme-challenge.<domain>, and in which views
Permission	the token may write the TXT record there (Jarl checks it as a dry run)
Write	a test record with a random value is written through Jarl, which loads it into named
Name servers	each of the zone's public name servers serves it, asked directly as the CA's resolvers will. A name server passes if any of its addresses does (tls.acme.check_propagation)
Public resolvers	the resolvers in tls.acme.resolvers (1.1.1.1, 9.9.9.9, 8.8.8.8) see it. If the name servers do but a resolver doesn't, it is only a warning: it may be holding an earlier answer
Clean up	the test record is removed

Each step says what went wrong and what to do. For example:

  ok    Jarl        the token is housecarl's, on Jarl v0.6.1
  ok    Zone        adbraun.lol in views internal, external
  FAIL  Permission  the token may not write the challenge record (...); give it the grant:
                    records:write zones=adbraun.lol names=_acme-challenge.fw.adbraun.lol types=TXT

The checks wait up to 90 seconds for the record to appear. A failing step lists the DNS questions it asked, as dig commands, so you can ask them yourself.

If the challenge name is a CNAME into another zone, the check follows it, as Let's Encrypt does.

Renewal

A certificate is renewed when a third of its lifetime is left: 30 days before the end for Let's Encrypt's 90-day certificates, 2 days for 6-day ones. housecarld looks twice a day. The check runs first every time, and the new certificate is used at once, without a restart.

If renewing fails, the old certificate keeps being served, and housecarld tries again after 1 hour, then 3, 6 and every 12. The dashboard shows a problem (certificate_failed), and certificate_expiring once less than 14 days are left. hc cert renew (Renew now in the web UI) tries again at once.

The ACME account and the certificate, with its key, are kept in Housecarl's database, so backups include them.

Settings

All under tls.acme in housecarl.yaml (configuration.md):

Setting	Default
domain	none (off)	the name on the certificate
email	none	the account's contact address
directory	letsencrypt-staging	letsencrypt, letsencrypt-staging, or an ACME directory URL (a private CA such as step-ca)
agree_tos	false	accept the CA's terms of service; no account is made without it
resolvers	1.1.1.1:53, 9.9.9.9:53, 8.8.8.8:53	public resolvers, to see the challenge as the CA does
check_propagation	true	also ask each of the zone's name servers directly
ca_bundle	none	extra CAs to trust for the ACME server itself

tls.cert_file and tls.acme can't both be set.