Hello,

Those permissions seem to match what I have on a fresh setup of let’s Encrypt

drwxr-xr-x  8 root root 4.0K Dec 25 10:18 .
drwxr-xr-x 96 root root 4.0K Jun  7 22:17 ..
drwx------  4 root root 4.0K Jun  7 22:40 accounts
drwx------  5 root root 4.0K Jun  7 22:51 archive
drwxr-xr-x  2 root root 4.0K Jun  7 22:51 csr
drwx------  2 root root 4.0K Jun  7 22:51 keys
drwx------  5 root root 4.0K Jun  7 22:51 live
drwxr-xr-x  2 root root 4.0K Jun  7 22:51 renewal

So I don’t believe that’s the issue. Where are you getting the permission error? What provided the output you gave with the permission denied?

Have you tried just using root directly, by switching to root with su? Can you run cd /etc/letsencrypt/live and move to the directory while using root or sudo?

Have you confirmed this is the problem with nginx as well? Make sure you have the ssl_certificate and ssl_certificate_key paths set correctly. I imagine it’s an error in the Virtualhost, such as a typo, rather than Letsencrypt.

Any solution on this? I got the same. Setup a server and everything went well, except this:

$ cd /etc/letsencrypt/live

``
-bash: cd: /etc/letsencrypt/live: Permission denied

So my sites give an error with https

Very same issue here… Any advice?
I can “cd” with root after “sudo su”, but I think I need to change permission to make it accessible with non-root user…

Found a solution for this:

1. Change the user group and user owner from root to your user you are logged in with. This enables access to these directories

   sudo chgrp {username} live, 
   sudo chown {username} live, 
   sudo chgrp {username} keys, 
   sudo chown {username} keys, 
   sudo chown {username} api.{domain}.com, 
   sudo chgrp {username} api.{domain}.com, 
   sudo chgrp -h {username} privkey.pem, 
   sudo chown -h {username} privkey.pem, 
   sudo chown -h {username} fullchain.pem , 
   sudo chgrp -h {username} fullchain.pem
   

2. Copy the files from the live folder to your project

   sudo cp /etc/letsencrypt/live/api.{domain}.com/fullchain.pem /home/{ProjectName}/bin/fullchain.pem
   sudo cp /etc/letsencrypt/live/api.{domain}.com/privkey.pem /home/{ProjectName}/bin/privkey.pem
   

3. Use these certificates from your project(inside bin folder in server.js)

   var certFilePath = path.resolve(__dirname, "fullchain.pem");
   var keyFilePath = path.resolve(__dirname, "privkey.pem");
   var certKeyFile = fs.readFileSync(keyFilePath);
   var certFile = fs.readFileSync(certFilePath);
   var options = {
   key  : certKeyFile,
   cert : certFile
   };
   https.createServer(options, app).listen({port number}, function () {
   console.log('Started!');
   });
   

I know it’s been a couple years but I just wanted to mention that I also had this issue. I decided to just give in and go to the root user (easy enough to do…) sudo su - hope you find this helpful!