# How To Add SSL Certificate on Centos 8

### **Why We Need SSL?**

SSL certificates are required for websites in order to protect user data, validate website ownership, prevent attackers from creating a false version of the site, and transmit trust to users. 

### **What is Certbot?**

Certbot is a free, open-source software tool for automatically using [Let’s Encrypt](https://letsencrypt.org/) certificates on manually-administrated websites to enable HTTPS.

source: [certbot](https://certbot.eff.org/pages/about)

### **Prerequisites**

* Server with CentOS 8
    
* Apache is installed on the server with the configured virtual host for your domains.
    

### **Step 1 - Installing the Certbot Client**

Add the CentOS 8 EPEL repository

```bash
$ sudo dnf install epel-release
```

Now Install Certbot with the required packages `python3-certbot-apache` and `mod_ssl`

```bash
$ sudo dnf install certbot python3-certbot-apache mod_ssl
```

### **Step 2 - Getting a Certificate**

To obtain a certificate that covers only one domain

```bash
$ sudo certbot --apache -d example.com
```

To obtain a certificate that covers multiple domains

```bash
$ sudo certbot --apache -d www.example.com -d example.com
```

You can also use `certbot` utility prompt

```bash
$ sudo certbot --apache
```

*#Output*

Successful Installation output will be something similar to this

```plaintext
IMPORTANT NOTES:
 - Congratulations! Your certificate and chain have been saved at:
   /etc/letsencrypt/live/example.com/fullchain.pem
   Your key file has been saved at:
   /etc/letsencrypt/live/example.com/privkey.pem
   Your cert will expire on 2022-01-26. To obtain a new or tweaked
   version of this certificate in the future, simply run certbot again
   with the "certonly" option. To non-interactively renew *all* of
   your certificates, run "certbot renew"
 - Your account credentials have been saved in your Certbot
   configuration directory at /etc/letsencrypt. You should make a
   secure backup of this folder now. This configuration directory will
   also contain certificates and private keys obtained by Certbot so
   making regular backups of this folder is ideal.
 - If you like Certbot, please consider supporting our work by:

   Donating to ISRG / Let's Encrypt:   https://letsencrypt.org/donate
   Donating to E
```

```plaintext
FF:                    https://eff.org/donate-le
```

### **Step 3 - Testing**

```plaintext
https://www.ssllabs.com/ssltest/analyze.html?d=example.com
```

## Conclusion 

We learned how to install a free SSL certificate on your domain in a very basic and straightforward manner.