Question

Error in Certbot renewal process

Today, I moved my application from apache to nginx. I used this tutorial to setup SSL using certbot. Everything went fine, until I run the --dry-run command.

Here is the error I am getting:

http-01 challenge for www.somedomain.com
Error while running apache2ctl graceful.
httpd not running, trying to start
Action 'graceful' failed.
The Apache error log may have more information.

(98)Address already in use: AH00072: make_sock: could not bind to address [::]:80
(98)Address already in use: AH00072: make_sock: could not bind to address 0.0.0.0:80
no listening sockets available, shutting down
AH00015: Unable to open logs

Unable to restart apache using ['apache2ctl', 'graceful']
Cleaning up challenges
Error while running apache2ctl graceful.
httpd not running, trying to start
Action 'graceful' failed.
The Apache error log may have more information.

(98)Address already in use: AH00072: make_sock: could not bind to address [::]:80
(98)Address already in use: AH00072: make_sock: could not bind to address 0.0.0.0:80
no listening sockets available, shutting down
AH00015: Unable to open logs

Unable to restart apache using ['apache2ctl', 'graceful']
Encountered exception during recovery: 
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/certbot_apache/configurator.py", line 2185, in _reload
    util.run_script(self.option("restart_cmd"))
  File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/certbot/util.py", line 86, in run_script
    raise errors.SubprocessError(msg)
certbot.errors.SubprocessError: Error while running apache2ctl graceful.
httpd not running, trying to start
Action 'graceful' failed.
The Apache error log may have more information.

(98)Address already in use: AH00072: make_sock: could not bind to address [::]:80
(98)Address already in use: AH00072: make_sock: could not bind to address 0.0.0.0:80
no listening sockets available, shutting down
AH00015: Unable to open logs


During handling of the above exception, another exception occurred:

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/certbot/auth_handler.py", line 75, in handle_authorizations
    resp = self._solve_challenges(aauthzrs)
  File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/certbot/auth_handler.py", line 139, in _solve_challenges
    resp = self.auth.perform(all_achalls)
  File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/certbot_apache/configurator.py", line 2287, in perform
    self.restart()
  File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/certbot_apache/configurator.py", line 2175, in restart
    self._reload()
  File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/certbot_apache/configurator.py", line 2203, in _reload
    raise errors.MisconfigurationError(error)
certbot.errors.MisconfigurationError: Error while running apache2ctl graceful.
httpd not running, trying to start
Action 'graceful' failed.
The Apache error log may have more information.

(98)Address already in use: AH00072: make_sock: could not bind to address [::]:80
(98)Address already in use: AH00072: make_sock: could not bind to address 0.0.0.0:80
no listening sockets available, shutting down
AH00015: Unable to open logs


During handling of the above exception, another exception occurred:

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/certbot_apache/configurator.py", line 2185, in _reload
    util.run_script(self.option("restart_cmd"))
  File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/certbot/util.py", line 86, in run_script
    raise errors.SubprocessError(msg)
certbot.errors.SubprocessError: Error while running apache2ctl graceful.
httpd not running, trying to start
Action 'graceful' failed.
The Apache error log may have more information.

(98)Address already in use: AH00072: make_sock: could not bind to address [::]:80
(98)Address already in use: AH00072: make_sock: could not bind to address 0.0.0.0:80
no listening sockets available, shutting down
AH00015: Unable to open logs


During handling of the above exception, another exception occurred:

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/certbot/error_handler.py", line 108, in _call_registered
    self.funcs[-1]()
  File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/certbot/auth_handler.py", line 323, in _cleanup_challenges
    self.auth.cleanup(achalls)
  File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/certbot_apache/configurator.py", line 2312, in cleanup
    self.restart()
  File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/certbot_apache/configurator.py", line 2175, in restart
    self._reload()
  File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/certbot_apache/configurator.py", line 2203, in _reload
    raise errors.MisconfigurationError(error)
certbot.errors.MisconfigurationError: Error while running apache2ctl graceful.
httpd not running, trying to start
Action 'graceful' failed.
The Apache error log may have more information.

(98)Address already in use: AH00072: make_sock: could not bind to address [::]:80
(98)Address already in use: AH00072: make_sock: could not bind to address 0.0.0.0:80
no listening sockets available, shutting down
AH00015: Unable to open logs

Attempting to renew cert (somedomain.com) from /etc/letsencrypt/renewal/somedomain.com.conf produced an unexpected error: Error while running apache2ctl graceful.
httpd not running, trying to start
Action 'graceful' failed.
The Apache error log may have more information.

(98)Address already in use: AH00072: make_sock: could not bind to address [::]:80
(98)Address already in use: AH00072: make_sock: could not bind to address 0.0.0.0:80
no listening sockets available, shutting down
AH00015: Unable to open logs
. Skipping.
The following certs could not be renewed:
  /etc/letsencrypt/live/somedomain.com/fullchain.pem (failure)

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
** DRY RUN: simulating 'certbot renew' close to cert expiry
**          (The test certificates below have not been saved.)

The following certs were successfully renewed:
  /etc/letsencrypt/live/somedomain.com-0001/fullchain.pem (success)

The following certs could not be renewed:
  /etc/letsencrypt/live/somedomain.com/fullchain.pem (failure)
** DRY RUN: simulating 'certbot renew' close to cert expiry
**          (The test certificates above have not been saved.)
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
1 renew failure(s), 0 parse failure(s)

I have already uninstalled the apache.

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Bobby Iliev
Site Moderator
Site Moderator badge
• November 6, 2019
Accepted Answer

Hello,

It looks like that the certbot is still trying to use Apache instead of Nginx, as from the output I can see that certbot is trying to start Apache but Nginx is already running and that’s why it is failing.

What I could suggest here is getting rid of Apache so that it does not cause any other issues, like starting before Nginx after a reboot.

Then after that, you need to adjust your certbot config:

  • As described in the tutorial make sure you actually have the nginx plugin:
sudo apt-get install python-certbot-nginx

  • Then edit the /etc/letsencrypt/renewal/somedomain.conf file

  • In that config file, there are two lines which you need to replace apache2 with nginx:

authenticator: nginx

And:

installer: nginx

Then run another renewal test with the certbot --dry-run renew command.

Let me know how it goes! Regards, Bobby