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

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