community.crypto.acme_certificate module – Create SSL/TLS certificates with the ACME protocol

Note

This module is part of the community.crypto collection (version 2.22.3).

You might already have this collection installed if you are using the ansible package. It is not included in ansible-core. To check whether it is installed, run ansible-galaxy collection list.

To install it, use: ansible-galaxy collection install community.crypto. You need further requirements to be able to use this module, see Requirements for details.

To use it in a playbook, specify: community.crypto.acme_certificate.

Synopsis 

Create and renew SSL/TLS certificates with a CA supporting the ACME protocol, such as Let’s Encrypt or Buypass. The current implementation supports the http-01, dns-01 and tls-alpn-01 challenges.
To use this module, it has to be executed twice. Either as two different tasks in the same run or during two runs. Note that the output of the first run needs to be recorded and passed to the second run as the module argument data.
Between these two tasks you have to fulfill the required steps for the chosen challenge by whatever means necessary. For http-01 that means creating the necessary challenge file on the destination webserver. For dns-01 the necessary dns record has to be created. For tls-alpn-01 the necessary certificate has to be created and served. It is not the responsibility of this module to perform these steps.
For details on how to fulfill these challenges, you might have to read through the main ACME specification and the TLS-ALPN-01 specification. Also, consider the examples provided for this module.
The module includes experimental support for IP identifiers according to the RFC 8738.

Requirements 

The below requirements are needed on the host that executes this module.

either openssl or cryptography >= 1.5
ipaddress

Parameters 

Parameter	Comments
account_email string	The email address associated with this account. It will be used for certificate expiration warnings. Note that when `modify_account` is not set to `false` and you also used the community.crypto.acme_account module to specify more than one contact for your account, this module will update your account and restrict it to the (at most one) contact email address specified here.
account_key_content string	Content of the ACME account RSA or Elliptic Curve key. Mutually exclusive with `account_key_src`. Required if `account_key_src` is not used. Warning: the content will be written into a temporary file, which will be deleted by Ansible when the module completes. Since this is an important private key — it can be used to change the account key, or to revoke your certificates without knowing their private keys —, this might not be acceptable. In case `cryptography` is used, the content is not written into a temporary file. It can still happen that it is written to disk by Ansible in the process of moving the module with its argument to the node where it is executed.
account_key_passphrase string added in community.crypto 1.6.0	Phassphrase to use to decode the account key. Note: this is not supported by the `openssl` backend, only by the `cryptography` backend.
account_key_src aliases: account_key path	Path to a file containing the ACME account RSA or Elliptic Curve key. Private keys can be created with the community.crypto.openssl_privatekey or community.crypto.openssl_privatekey_pipe modules. If the requisite (cryptography) is not available, keys can also be created directly with the `openssl` command line tool: RSA keys can be created with `openssl genrsa ...`. Elliptic curve keys can be created with `openssl ecparam -genkey ...`. Any other tool creating private keys in PEM format can be used as well. Mutually exclusive with `account_key_content`. Required if `account_key_content` is not used.
account_uri string	If specified, assumes that the account URI is as given. If the account key does not match this account, or an account with this URI does not exist, the module fails.
acme_directory string / required	The ACME directory to use. This is the entry point URL to access the ACME CA server API. For safety reasons the default is set to the Let’s Encrypt staging server (for the ACME v1 protocol). This will create technically correct, but untrusted certificates. For Let’s Encrypt, all staging endpoints can be found here: https://letsencrypt.org/docs/staging-environment/. For Buypass, all endpoints can be found here: https://community.buypass.com/t/63d4ay/buypass-go-ssl-endpoints For Let’s Encrypt, the production directory URL for ACME v2 is https://acme-v02.api.letsencrypt.org/directory. For Buypass, the production directory URL for ACME v2 and v1 is https://api.buypass.com/acme/directory. For ZeroSSL, the production directory URL for ACME v2 is https://acme.zerossl.com/v2/DV90. For Sectigo, the production directory URL for ACME v2 is https://acme-qa.secure.trust-provider.com/v2/DV. The notes for this module contain a list of ACME services this module has been tested against.
acme_version integer / required	The ACME version of the endpoint. Must be `1` for the classic Let’s Encrypt and Buypass ACME endpoints, or `2` for standardized ACME v2 endpoints. The value `1` is deprecated since community.crypto 2.0.0 and will be removed from community.crypto 3.0.0. Choices: `1` `2`
agreement string	URI to a terms of service document you agree to when using the ACME v1 service at `acme_directory`. Default is latest gathered from `acme_directory` URL. This option will only be used when `acme_version` is 1.
chain_dest aliases: chain path	If specified, the intermediate certificate will be written to this file.
challenge string	The challenge to be performed. If set to `no challenge`, no challenge will be used. This is necessary for some private CAs which use External Account Binding and other means of validating certificate assurance. For example, an account could be allowed to issue certificates for `foo.example.com` without any further validation for a certain period of time. Choices: `"http-01"` ← (default) `"dns-01"` `"tls-alpn-01"` `"no challenge"`
csr aliases: src path	File containing the CSR for the new certificate. Can be created with community.crypto.openssl_csr. The CSR may contain multiple Subject Alternate Names, but each one will lead to an individual challenge that must be fulfilled for the CSR to be signed. Note: the private key used to create the CSR must not be the account key. This is a bad idea from a security point of view, and the CA should not accept the CSR. The ACME server should return an error in this case. Precisely one of `csr` or `csr_content` must be specified.
csr_content string added in community.crypto 1.2.0	Content of the CSR for the new certificate. Can be created with community.crypto.openssl_csr_pipe. The CSR may contain multiple Subject Alternate Names, but each one will lead to an individual challenge that must be fulfilled for the CSR to be signed. Note: the private key used to create the CSR must not be the account key. This is a bad idea from a security point of view, and the CA should not accept the CSR. The ACME server should return an error in this case. Precisely one of `csr` or `csr_content` must be specified.
data dictionary	The data to validate ongoing challenges. This must be specified for the second run of the module only. The value that must be used here will be provided by a previous use of this module. See the examples for more details. Note that for ACME v2, only the `order_uri` entry of `data` will be used. For ACME v1, `data` must be non-empty to indicate the second stage is active; all needed data will be taken from the CSR. Note: the `data` option was marked as `no_log` up to Ansible 2.5. From Ansible 2.6 on, it is no longer marked this way as it causes error messages to be come unusable, and `data` does not contain any information which can be used without having access to the account key or which are not public anyway.
deactivate_authzs boolean	Deactivate authentication objects (authz) after issuing a certificate, or when issuing the certificate failed. Authentication objects are bound to an account key and remain valid for a certain amount of time, and can be used to issue certificates without having to re-authenticate the domain. This can be a security concern. Choices: `false` ← (default) `true`
dest aliases: cert path	The destination file for the certificate. Required if `fullchain_dest` is not specified.
force boolean	Enforces the execution of the challenge and validation, even if an existing certificate is still valid for more than `remaining_days`. This is especially helpful when having an updated CSR, for example with additional domains for which a new certificate is desired. Choices: `false` ← (default) `true`
fullchain_dest aliases: fullchain path	The destination file for the full chain (that is, a certificate followed by chain of intermediate certificates). Required if `dest` is not specified.
include_renewal_cert_id string added in community.crypto 2.20.0	Determines whether to request renewal of an existing certificate according to the ACME ARI draft 3. This is only used when the certificate specified in `dest` or `fullchain_dest` already exists. `never` never sends the certificate ID of the certificate to renew. `always` will always send it. `when_ari_supported` only sends the certificate ID if the ARI endpoint is found in the ACME directory. Generally you should use `when_ari_supported` if you know that the ACME service supports a compatible draft (or final version, once it is out) of the ARI extension. `always` should never be necessary. If you are not sure, or if you receive strange errors on invalid `replaces` values in order objects, use `never`, which also happens to be the default. ACME servers might refuse to create new orders with `replaces` for certificates that already have an existing order. This can happen if this module is used to create an order, and then the playbook/role fails in case the challenges cannot be set up. If the playbook/role does not record the order data to continue with the existing order, but tries to create a new one on the next run, creating the new order might fail. For this reason, this option should only be set to a value different from `never` if the role/playbook using it keeps track of order data accross restarts, or if it takes care to deactivate orders whose processing is aborted. Orders can be deactivated with the community.crypto.acme_certificate_deactivate_authz module. Choices: `"never"` ← (default) `"when_ari_supported"` `"always"`
modify_account boolean	Boolean indicating whether the module should create the account if necessary, and update its contact data. Set to `false` if you want to use the community.crypto.acme_account module to manage your account instead, and to avoid accidental creation of a new account using an old key if you changed the account key with community.crypto.acme_account. If set to `false`, `terms_agreed` and `account_email` are ignored. Choices: `false` `true` ← (default)
remaining_days integer	The number of days the certificate must have left being valid. If `cert_days` < `remaining_days`, then it will be renewed. If the certificate is not renewed, module return values will not include `challenge_data`. To make sure that the certificate is renewed in any case, you can use the `force` option. Default: `10`
request_timeout integer added in community.crypto 2.3.0	The time Ansible should wait for a response from the ACME API. This timeout is applied to all HTTP(S) requests (HEAD, GET, POST). Default: `10`
retrieve_all_alternates boolean	When set to `true`, will retrieve all alternate trust chains offered by the ACME CA. These will not be written to disk, but will be returned together with the main chain as `all_chains`. See the documentation for the `all_chains` return value for details. Choices: `false` ← (default) `true`
select_chain list / elements=dictionary added in community.crypto 1.0.0	Allows to specify criteria by which an (alternate) trust chain can be selected. The list of criteria will be processed one by one until a chain is found matching a criterium. If such a chain is found, it will be used by the module instead of the default chain. If a criterium matches multiple chains, the first one matching will be returned. The order is determined by the ordering of the `Link` headers returned by the ACME server and might not be deterministic. Every criterium can consist of multiple different conditions, like `select_chain[].issuer` and `select_chain[].subject`. For the criterium to match a chain, all conditions must apply to the same certificate in the chain. This option can only be used with the `cryptography` backend.
authority_key_identifier string	Checks for the AuthorityKeyIdentifier extension. This is an identifier based on the private key of the issuer of the intermediate certificate. The identifier must be of the form `C4:A7:B1:A4:7B:2C:71:FA:DB:E1:4B:90:75:FF:C4:15:60:85:89:10`.
issuer dictionary	Allows to specify parts of the issuer of a certificate in the chain must have to be selected. If `select_chain[].issuer` is empty, any certificate will match. An example value would be `{"commonName": "My Preferred CA Root"}`.
subject dictionary	Allows to specify parts of the subject of a certificate in the chain must have to be selected. If `select_chain[].subject` is empty, any certificate will match. An example value would be `{"CN": "My Preferred CA Intermediate"}`
subject_key_identifier string	Checks for the SubjectKeyIdentifier extension. This is an identifier based on the private key of the intermediate certificate. The identifier must be of the form `A8:4A:6A:63:04:7D:DD:BA:E6:D1:39:B7:A6:45:65:EF:F3:A8:EC:A1`.
test_certificates string	Determines which certificates in the chain will be tested. `all` tests all certificates in the chain (excluding the leaf, which is identical in all chains). `first` only tests the first certificate in the chain, that is the one which signed the leaf. `last` only tests the last certificate in the chain, that is the one furthest away from the leaf. Its issuer is the root certificate of this chain. Choices: `"first"` `"last"` `"all"` ← (default)
select_crypto_backend string	Determines which crypto backend to use. The default choice is `auto`, which tries to use `cryptography` if available, and falls back to `openssl`. If set to `openssl`, will try to use the `openssl` binary. If set to `cryptography`, will try to use the cryptography library. Choices: `"auto"` ← (default) `"cryptography"` `"openssl"`
terms_agreed boolean	Boolean indicating whether you agree to the terms of service document. ACME servers can require this to be true. This option will only be used when `acme_version` is not 1. Choices: `false` ← (default) `true`
validate_certs boolean	Whether calls to the ACME directory will validate TLS certificates. Warning: Should only ever be set to `false` for testing purposes, for example when testing against a local Pebble server. Choices: `false` `true` ← (default)

Attributes 

Attribute	Support	Description
action_group	Action groups: community.crypto.acme, acme	Use `group/acme` or `group/community.crypto.acme` in `module_defaults` to set defaults for this module.
check_mode	Support: full	Can run in `check_mode` and return changed status prediction without modifying target.
diff_mode	Support: none	Will return details on what has changed (or possibly needs changing in `check_mode`), when in diff mode.
safe_file_operations	Support: full	Uses Ansible’s strict file operation functions to ensure proper permissions and avoid data corruption.

Notes 

Note

At least one of dest and fullchain_dest must be specified.
This module includes basic account management functionality. If you want to have more control over your ACME account, use the community.crypto.acme_account module and disable account management for this module using the modify_account option.
This module was called letsencrypt before Ansible 2.6. The usage did not change.
Although the defaults are chosen so that the module can be used with the Let’s Encrypt CA, the module can in principle be used with any CA providing an ACME endpoint, such as Buypass Go SSL.
So far, the ACME modules have only been tested by the developers against Let’s Encrypt (staging and production), Buypass (staging and production), ZeroSSL (production), and Pebble testing server. We have got community feedback that they also work with Sectigo ACME Service for InCommon. If you experience problems with another ACME server, please create an issue to help us supporting it. Feedback that an ACME server not mentioned does work is also appreciated.
If a new enough version of the cryptography library is available (see Requirements for details), it will be used instead of the openssl binary. This can be explicitly disabled or enabled with the select_crypto_backend option. Note that using the openssl binary will be slower and less secure, as private key contents always have to be stored on disk (see account_key_content).

Examples 

### Example with HTTP challenge ###

- name: Create a challenge for sample.com using a account key from a variable.
  community.crypto.acme_certificate:
    account_key_content: "{{ account_private_key }}"
    csr: /etc/pki/cert/csr/sample.com.csr
    dest: /etc/httpd/ssl/sample.com.crt
  register: sample_com_challenge

# Alternative first step:
- name: Create a challenge for sample.com using a account key from Hashi Vault.
  community.crypto.acme_certificate:
    account_key_content: >-
      {{ lookup('community.hashi_vault.hashi_vault', 'secret=secret/account_private_key:value') }}
    csr: /etc/pki/cert/csr/sample.com.csr
    fullchain_dest: /etc/httpd/ssl/sample.com-fullchain.crt
  register: sample_com_challenge

# Alternative first step:
- name: Create a challenge for sample.com using a account key file.
  community.crypto.acme_certificate:
    account_key_src: /etc/pki/cert/private/account.key
    csr_content: "{{ lookup('file', '/etc/pki/cert/csr/sample.com.csr') }}"
    dest: /etc/httpd/ssl/sample.com.crt
    fullchain_dest: /etc/httpd/ssl/sample.com-fullchain.crt
  register: sample_com_challenge

# perform the necessary steps to fulfill the challenge
# for example:
#
# - name: Copy http-01 challenge for sample.com
#   ansible.builtin.copy:
#     dest: /var/www/html/{{ sample_com_challenge['challenge_data']['sample.com']['http-01']['resource'] }}
#     content: "{{ sample_com_challenge['challenge_data']['sample.com']['http-01']['resource_value'] }}"
#   when: sample_com_challenge is changed and 'sample.com' in sample_com_challenge['challenge_data']
#
# Alternative way:
#
# - name: Copy http-01 challenges
#   ansible.builtin.copy:
#     dest: /var/www/{{ item.key }}/{{ item.value['http-01']['resource'] }}
#     content: "{{ item.value['http-01']['resource_value'] }}"
#   loop: "{{ sample_com_challenge.challenge_data | dict2items }}"
#   when: sample_com_challenge is changed

- name: Let the challenge be validated and retrieve the cert and intermediate certificate
  community.crypto.acme_certificate:
    account_key_src: /etc/pki/cert/private/account.key
    csr: /etc/pki/cert/csr/sample.com.csr
    dest: /etc/httpd/ssl/sample.com.crt
    fullchain_dest: /etc/httpd/ssl/sample.com-fullchain.crt
    chain_dest: /etc/httpd/ssl/sample.com-intermediate.crt
    data: "{{ sample_com_challenge }}"

### Example with DNS challenge against production ACME server ###

- name: Create a challenge for sample.com using a account key file.
  community.crypto.acme_certificate:
    account_key_src: /etc/pki/cert/private/account.key
    account_email: [email protected]
    src: /etc/pki/cert/csr/sample.com.csr
    cert: /etc/httpd/ssl/sample.com.crt
    challenge: dns-01
    acme_directory: https://acme-v01.api.letsencrypt.org/directory
    # Renew if the certificate is at least 30 days old
    remaining_days: 60
  register: sample_com_challenge

# perform the necessary steps to fulfill the challenge
# for example:
#
# - name: Create DNS record for sample.com dns-01 challenge
#   community.aws.route53:
#     zone: sample.com
#     record: "{{ sample_com_challenge.challenge_data['sample.com']['dns-01'].record }}"
#     type: TXT
#     ttl: 60
#     state: present
#     wait: true
#     # Note: route53 requires TXT entries to be enclosed in quotes
#     value: "{{ sample_com_challenge.challenge_data['sample.com']['dns-01'].resource_value | community.dns.quote_txt(always_quote=true) }}"
#   when: sample_com_challenge is changed and 'sample.com' in sample_com_challenge.challenge_data
#
# Alternative way:
#
# - name: Create DNS records for dns-01 challenges
#   community.aws.route53:
#     zone: sample.com
#     record: "{{ item.key }}"
#     type: TXT
#     ttl: 60
#     state: present
#     wait: true
#     # Note: item.value is a list of TXT entries, and route53
#     # requires every entry to be enclosed in quotes
#     value: "{{ item.value | map('community.dns.quote_txt', always_quote=true) | list }}"
#   loop: "{{ sample_com_challenge.challenge_data_dns | dict2items }}"
#   when: sample_com_challenge is changed

- name: Let the challenge be validated and retrieve the cert and intermediate certificate
  community.crypto.acme_certificate:
    account_key_src: /etc/pki/cert/private/account.key
    account_email: [email protected]
    src: /etc/pki/cert/csr/sample.com.csr
    cert: /etc/httpd/ssl/sample.com.crt
    fullchain: /etc/httpd/ssl/sample.com-fullchain.crt
    chain: /etc/httpd/ssl/sample.com-intermediate.crt
    challenge: dns-01
    acme_directory: https://acme-v01.api.letsencrypt.org/directory
    remaining_days: 60
    data: "{{ sample_com_challenge }}"
  when: sample_com_challenge is changed

# Alternative second step:
- name: Let the challenge be validated and retrieve the cert and intermediate certificate
  community.crypto.acme_certificate:
    account_key_src: /etc/pki/cert/private/account.key
    account_email: [email protected]
    src: /etc/pki/cert/csr/sample.com.csr
    cert: /etc/httpd/ssl/sample.com.crt
    fullchain: /etc/httpd/ssl/sample.com-fullchain.crt
    chain: /etc/httpd/ssl/sample.com-intermediate.crt
    challenge: tls-alpn-01
    remaining_days: 60
    data: "{{ sample_com_challenge }}"
    # We use Let's Encrypt's ACME v2 endpoint
    acme_directory: https://acme-v02.api.letsencrypt.org/directory
    acme_version: 2
    # The following makes sure that if a chain with /CN=DST Root CA X3 in its issuer is provided
    # as an alternative, it will be selected. These are the roots cross-signed by IdenTrust.
    # As long as Let's Encrypt provides alternate chains with the cross-signed root(s) when
    # switching to their own ISRG Root X1 root, this will use the chain ending with a cross-signed
    # root. This chain is more compatible with older TLS clients.
    select_chain:
      - test_certificates: last
        issuer:
          CN: DST Root CA X3
          O: Digital Signature Trust Co.
  when: sample_com_challenge is changed

Return Values 

Common return values are documented here, the following are the fields unique to this module:

Key	Description
account_uri string	ACME account URI. Returned: changed
all_chains list / elements=dictionary	When `retrieve_all_alternates` is set to `true`, the module will query the ACME server for alternate chains. This return value will contain a list of all chains returned, the first entry being the main chain returned by the server. See Section 7.4.2 of RFC8555 for details. Returned: when certificate was retrieved and `retrieve_all_alternates` is set to `true`
cert string	The leaf certificate itself, in PEM format. Returned: always
chain string	The certificate chain, excluding the root, as concatenated PEM certificates. Returned: always
full_chain string	The certificate chain, excluding the root, but including the leaf certificate, as concatenated PEM certificates. Returned: always
authorizations dictionary	ACME authorization data. Maps an identifier to ACME authorization objects. See https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc8555#section-7.1.4. Returned: changed Sample: `{"example.com": {"challenges": [{"status": "valid", "token": "A5b1C3d2E9f8G7h6", "type": "http-01", "url": "https://example.org/acme/challenge/12345", "validated": "2022-08-01T01:01:02.34Z"}], "expires": "2022-08-04T01:02:03.45Z", "identifier": {"type": "dns", "value": "example.com"}, "status": "valid", "wildcard": false}}`
cert_days integer	The number of days the certificate remains valid. Returned: success
challenge_data dictionary	Per identifier / challenge type challenge data. Since Ansible 2.8.5, only challenges which are not yet valid are returned. Returned: changed
identifier dictionary	For every identifier, provides a dictionary of challenge types mapping to challenge data. The keys in this dictionary are the identifiers. `identifier` is a placeholder used in the documentation. Note that the keys are not valid Jinja2 identifiers. Returned: changed
challenge-type dictionary	Data for every challenge type. The keys in this dictionary are the challenge types. `challenge-type` is a placeholder used in the documentation. Possible keys are `http-01`, `dns-01`, and `tls-alpn-01`. Note that the keys are not valid Jinja2 identifiers. Returned: changed
record string	The full DNS record’s name for the challenge. Returned: changed and challenge is `dns-01` Sample: `"_acme-challenge.example.com"`
resource string	The challenge resource that must be created for validation. Returned: changed Sample: `".well-known/acme-challenge/evaGxfADs6pSRb2LAv9IZf17Dt3juxGJ-PCt92wr-oA"`
resource_original string	The original challenge resource including type identifier for `tls-alpn-01` challenges. Returned: changed and `challenge` is `tls-alpn-01` Sample: `"DNS:example.com"`
resource_value string	The value the resource has to produce for the validation. For `http-01` and `dns-01` challenges, the value can be used as-is. For `tls-alpn-01` challenges, note that this return value contains a Base64 encoded version of the correct binary blob which has to be put into the acmeValidation x509 extension; see https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc8737.html#section-3 for details. To do this, you might need the ansible.builtin.b64decode Jinja filter to extract the binary blob from this return value. Returned: changed Sample: `"IlirfxKKXA...17Dt3juxGJ-PCt92wr-oA"`
challenge_data_dns dictionary	List of TXT values per DNS record, in case challenge is `dns-01`. Since Ansible 2.8.5, only challenges which are not yet valid are returned. Returned: changed
finalization_uri string	ACME finalization URI. Returned: changed
order_uri string	ACME order URI. Returned: changed

Authors

Michael Gruener (@mgruener)