Let’s Encrypt! certificate always expires

Update (October 2026):

While the manual command below still works, it’s actually outdated! Modern Certbot installations handle renewals automatically via background systemd timers. If your certificate is still expiring, your background timer might be broken. Run:

sudo certbot renew --dry-run

sudo certbot renew --dry-run

to test the automation instead of SSHing in every 3 months.

Original post:

I usually don’t SSH into the server that runs this blog. When I do, it’s because the free SSL certificate by Let’s Encrypt! has expired.

Every time this happens, I just google to find a quick solution, and I’ll quickly forget the steps within days. So this time, I’m going to write the steps down.

The one command I need to run is just:

sudo certbot --nginx -d blog.ericliu.xyz

sudo certbot --nginx -d blog.ericliu.xyz

Come on, Eric. Don’t google this again.

Links:

• https://www.digitalocean.com/community/tutorials/how-to-secure-nginx-with-let-s-encrypt-on-debian-10