How to enable Let's Encrypt in Directadmin

We are glad to share a new great feature that appeared in Directadmin since 1.5 version that was released a day ago. With this you can install an absolutely free SSL certificate from Let's Encrypt. 

Let’s Encrypt is a new Certificate Authority: 
It’s free, automated, and open.
letsencrypt.org

To get it ready for usage in DirectAdmin follow the steps:

Upgrade DirectAdmin

Upgrade Directadmin by any means, and make sure it was upgraded at least the current 1.5 version:

# /usr/local/directadmin/directadmin v
Version: DirectAdmin v.1.50.0

Enable Letsencrypt Support in DirectAdmin

By default the support for Letsencrypt is disabled as of yet, you can make sure with the following command:

# /usr/local/directadmin/directadmin c | grep letsencrypt=
letsencrypt=0

To enable it run this:

# echo "letsencrypt=1" >> /usr/local/directadmin/conf/directadmin.conf

and restart DirectAdmin:

# service directadmin restart

Check to make sure the Letsencrypt Support was enabled:

# /usr/local/directadmin/directadmin c | grep letsencrypt=
letsencrypt=1

Additionaly you might need to add SNI support in DirectAdmin:

# echo "enable_ssl_sni=1" >> /usr/local/directadmin/conf/directadmin.conf
# service directadmin restart

if you host several domains per IP and want SSL cert for every of them.

Update web-server configs

Run the following commands to get configs updated:

# cd /usr/local/directadmin/custombuild
# ./build update
# ./build rewrite_confs

That's it... Go to DirectAdmin as user and install your free SSL cert from Let's Encrypt

User Level -> SSL Certificates

There is a 3rd certification creation radio box: "Free & automatic certificate from Let's Encrypt" in addition to the other 2 'self-signed' and 'create request' options.

Current Rate Limits

Let’s Encrypt has the following rate limits in place:

• Names/Certificate is the limit on how many domain names you can include in a single certificate. This is currently limited to 100 names, or websites, per certificate issued.
• Certificates/Domain you could run into through repeated re-issuance. This limit measures certificates issued for a given combination of Public Suffix + Domain (a "registered domain"). This is limited to 5 certificates per domain per week.
• Registrations/IP address limits the number of registrations you can make in a given time period; currently 500 per 3 hours. This limit should only affect the largest users of Let's Encrypt.
• Pending Authorizations/Account limits how many times an ACME client can request a domain name be authorized without actually fulfilling on the request itself. This limit is set to 300 per account per week.

There is no limit to the number of certificates that can be issued to different domains.

Have fun with this.

p.s. Want more details? Read this article.