Letsencrypt auto renewal instructions do not work on centos 7

[Laurelai]

The commands put in the cron job
"#!/usr/bin/env bash
letsencrypt renew
systemctl reload nginx"

Do not work as the script will fail to renew when nginx is running.

Should be
#!/usr/bin/env bash
letsencrypt renew --pre-hook "service nginx stop" --post-hook "service nginx start"

[coreyreichle]

This might be an upstream bug, as you should be able to renew with nginx running, and just affecting a reload after completion (To prevent downtime).

[Laurelai]

Regardless centos 7 users should be made aware that the given cron job will not function as it would on other distros within the documentation until its fixed.

[coreyreichle]

Pull request waiting approval.

[nightpool]

@Laurelai can you describe the bug for us? I think it's likely that this is actually a problem with the way you originally set up certbot.

did you originally register using the standalone or webroot method?

[Laurelai]

I dont remember.

[nightpool]

you can check the renewal configuration file at /etc/letsencrypt/renewal/CERTNAME.

[Laurelai]

Ah looks like it was standalone

[nightpool]

Okay, closing the issue then since the production guide specifically specifies that you should use webroot to avoid this issue. You can reconfigure LE to use webroot by re-running the command from the production guide.