K-Developers: Linux

How to setup Let's encrypt SSL Certificate on an amazon AWS Instance

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A few days ago we showed you how to add an SSL certificate – one that you can purchase – to your newly created Amazon AWS Instances. As I was researching SSL certificates, I came across an interesting initiative: Let’s Encrypt.  It’s an organization dedicated to serving up free SSL certfiicates so you can encrypt your site data.</div>
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According to their website, they have six key points to their reasoning:</div>
<blockquote style="-webkit-font-smoothing: subpixel-antialiased; background-color: white; border-bottom-color: initial; border-bottom-style: initial; border-image: initial; border-left-color: rgb(221, 221, 221); border-left-style: solid; border-right-color: initial; border-right-style: initial; border-top-color: initial; border-top-style: initial; border-width: 0px 0px 0px 1px; color: #777777; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 17px; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: italic; font-variant-numeric: inherit; line-height: 24px; margin: 0px 0px 20px; padding: 9px 20px 0px 19px; quotes: none; vertical-align: baseline;">
<ul style="-webkit-font-smoothing: subpixel-antialiased; border: 0px; font-family: Montserrat; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: 28px; list-style-image: initial; list-style-position: initial; margin: 0px 0px 20px 30px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
<li style="-webkit-font-smoothing: subpixel-antialiased; border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: 18px; margin: 0px 0px 12px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><strong style="-webkit-font-smoothing: subpixel-antialiased; border: 0px; color: inherit; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Free:</strong> Anyone who owns a domain name can use Let’s Encrypt to obtain a trusted certificate at zero cost.</li>
<li style="-webkit-font-smoothing: subpixel-antialiased; border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: 18px; margin: 0px 0px 12px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><strong style="-webkit-font-smoothing: subpixel-antialiased; border: 0px; color: inherit; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Automatic:</strong> Software running on a web server can interact with Let’s Encrypt to painlessly obtain a certificate, securely configure it for use, and automatically take care of renewal.</li>
<li style="-webkit-font-smoothing: subpixel-antialiased; border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: 18px; margin: 0px 0px 12px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><strong style="-webkit-font-smoothing: subpixel-antialiased; border: 0px; color: inherit; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Secure:</strong> Let’s Encrypt will serve as a platform for advancing TLS security best practices, both on the CA side and by helping site operators properly secure their servers.</li>
<li style="-webkit-font-smoothing: subpixel-antialiased; border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: 18px; margin: 0px 0px 12px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><strong style="-webkit-font-smoothing: subpixel-antialiased; border: 0px; color: inherit; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Transparent:</strong> All certificates issued or revoked will be publicly recorded and available for anyone to inspect.</li>
<li style="-webkit-font-smoothing: subpixel-antialiased; border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: 18px; margin: 0px 0px 12px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><strong style="-webkit-font-smoothing: subpixel-antialiased; border: 0px; color: inherit; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Open:</strong> The automatic issuance and renewal protocol will be published as an open standard that others can adopt.</li>
<li style="-webkit-font-smoothing: subpixel-antialiased; border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: 18px; margin: 0px 0px 12px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><strong style="-webkit-font-smoothing: subpixel-antialiased; border: 0px; color: inherit; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Cooperative:</strong> Much like the underlying Internet protocols themselves, Let’s Encrypt is a joint effort to benefit the community,</li>
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Whereas some people are turned off by the cost of an SSL Certificate from a trusted authority, this becomes a much better option.</div>
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<em style="-webkit-font-smoothing: subpixel-antialiased; border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Note: There are a couple of other tutorials on setting up the “letsencrypt” package, but I ran into a few snags post-setup that I want to address, specifically on the WordPress front.</em></div>
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Step 0: Prerequisites</h3>
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We’re setting this up on Ubuntu, so we’ll need:</div>
<ul style="-webkit-font-smoothing: subpixel-antialiased; background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #222222; font-family: Montserrat; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant-numeric: inherit; line-height: 28px; list-style-image: initial; list-style-position: initial; margin: 0px 0px 20px 30px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
<li style="-webkit-font-smoothing: subpixel-antialiased; border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: 18px; margin: 0px 0px 12px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">A user with sudo privileges. If you’ve been following the tutorials, you have this.</li>
<li style="-webkit-font-smoothing: subpixel-antialiased; border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: 18px; margin: 0px 0px 12px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Your domain registrar login information.</li>
<li style="-webkit-font-smoothing: subpixel-antialiased; border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: 18px; margin: 0px 0px 12px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Your domain pointed to the Amazon AWS Elastic IP with an A record. Letsencrypt validates the domain ownership via the A record, so make sure that the IP address is set up properly in your domain registrar.</li>
<li style="-webkit-font-smoothing: subpixel-antialiased; border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: 18px; margin: 0px 0px 12px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">You’ll need to stop the server for a few minutes to allow letsencrypt to run a web server on port 80. Make any necessary precautions.</li>
<li style="-webkit-font-smoothing: subpixel-antialiased; border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: 18px; margin: 0px 0px 12px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">There is a second, ‘webroot’ option that we can tap into for automatic renewals, so once the initial setup process is done we won’t have to shut down the server again.</li>
</ul>
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Step 1: Installing the Let’s Encrypt Installation Scripts</h3>
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Right now, it’s not available via the package managers – I have a suspiscion that will change soon. But we can definitely clone it via Git.</div>
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Update your packages…</div>
<pre style="-webkit-font-smoothing: subpixel-antialiased; background: rgb(18, 18, 20); border: 1px solid rgb(102, 102, 102); color: #cccccc; font-family: "Courier New", Courier, Monospaced; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant-numeric: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin-bottom: 20px; padding: 5px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; word-wrap: break-word;">$ sudo apt-get update</pre>
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…and install both <strong style="-webkit-font-smoothing: subpixel-antialiased; border: 0px; color: inherit; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">git</strong> and <strong style="-webkit-font-smoothing: subpixel-antialiased; border: 0px; color: inherit; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">bc.</strong></div>
<pre style="-webkit-font-smoothing: subpixel-antialiased; background: rgb(18, 18, 20); border: 1px solid rgb(102, 102, 102); color: #cccccc; font-family: "Courier New", Courier, Monospaced; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant-numeric: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin-bottom: 20px; padding: 5px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; word-wrap: break-word;">$ sudo apt-get -y install git bc</pre>
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BC, by the way, is an “arbitrary precision language calculator”. Neat!</div>
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Clone the letsencrypt package into /opt:</div>
<pre style="-webkit-font-smoothing: subpixel-antialiased; background: rgb(18, 18, 20); border: 1px solid rgb(102, 102, 102); color: #cccccc; font-family: "Courier New", Courier, Monospaced; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant-numeric: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin-bottom: 20px; padding: 5px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; word-wrap: break-word;">$ sudo git clone https://github.com/letsencrypt/letsencrypt /opt/letsencrypt</pre>
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Now that it’s installed and we have our dependencies, we can start the installation package.</div>
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Step 2: Using letsencrypt and Obtaining a Certificate</h3>
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Stop your Nginx server…</div>
<pre style="-webkit-font-smoothing: subpixel-antialiased; background: rgb(18, 18, 20); border: 1px solid rgb(102, 102, 102); color: #cccccc; font-family: "Courier New", Courier, Monospaced; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant-numeric: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin-bottom: 20px; padding: 5px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; word-wrap: break-word;">$ sudo service nginx stop</pre>
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…and check to see if port 80 is open and in use.</div>
<pre style="-webkit-font-smoothing: subpixel-antialiased; background: rgb(18, 18, 20); border: 1px solid rgb(102, 102, 102); color: #cccccc; font-family: "Courier New", Courier, Monospaced; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant-numeric: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin-bottom: 20px; padding: 5px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; word-wrap: break-word;">$ netstat -na | grep ':80.*LISTEN'</pre>
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If you don’t seen any output… congrats! You’re ready to go!</div>
<pre style="-webkit-font-smoothing: subpixel-antialiased; background: rgb(18, 18, 20); border: 1px solid rgb(102, 102, 102); color: #cccccc; font-family: "Courier New", Courier, Monospaced; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant-numeric: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin-bottom: 20px; padding: 5px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; word-wrap: break-word;">$ cd /opt/letsencrypt
$ ./letsencrypt-auto certonly --standalone</pre>
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You’ll see a few things initialize, and you’ll be asked for a few bits of information. If this is your first time setting up, you’ll be asked for your email address. You’ll use this to receive notices and any recovery options, so make sure it’s valid and hit <OK>.</div>
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<img alt="encrypt-email" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-4143" height="221" src="https://www.mitchcanter.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/encrypt-email.png" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: subpixel-antialiased; border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; height: auto; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; max-width: 100%; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;" width="597" /></div>
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Then a terms of service screen. Read the terms and click <Agree>.</div>
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<img alt="encrypt-tos" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-4146" height="409" src="https://www.mitchcanter.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/encrypt-tos.png" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: subpixel-antialiased; border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; height: auto; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; max-width: 100%; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;" width="571" /></div>
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Now, enter the domain names you want to secure. If you have multiple subdomains (www vs non-www) enter them both. I usually enter the root top level domain (non-www) first, but that’s my preference:</div>
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<img alt="encrypt-tld" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-4150" height="235" src="https://www.mitchcanter.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/encrypt-tld.png" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: subpixel-antialiased; border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; height: auto; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; max-width: 100%; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;" width="616" /></div>
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Let the command finish running. You should see a large wall of text with a few important pieces of information:</div>
<ul style="-webkit-font-smoothing: subpixel-antialiased; background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #222222; font-family: Montserrat; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant-numeric: inherit; line-height: 28px; list-style-image: initial; list-style-position: initial; margin: 0px 0px 20px 30px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
<li style="-webkit-font-smoothing: subpixel-antialiased; border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: 18px; margin: 0px 0px 12px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Location of the saved certificate chain and keys:<pre style="-webkit-font-smoothing: subpixel-antialiased; background: rgb(18, 18, 20); border: 1px solid rgb(102, 102, 102); color: #cccccc; font-family: "Courier New", Courier, Monospaced; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin-bottom: 20px; padding: 5px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; word-wrap: break-word;">/etc/letsencrypt/live/<strong style="-webkit-font-smoothing: subpixel-antialiased; border: 0px; color: inherit; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">yourdomain.com</strong></pre>
</li>
<li style="-webkit-font-smoothing: subpixel-antialiased; border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: 18px; margin: 0px 0px 12px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Expiration date of the certificate</li>
</ul>
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You’ll notice that the certificate expires quickly – 90 days. We’ll automate the renewal process later in the tutorial.</div>
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You’ll also notice, if you list the location above…</div>
<pre style="-webkit-font-smoothing: subpixel-antialiased; background: rgb(18, 18, 20); border: 1px solid rgb(102, 102, 102); color: #cccccc; font-family: "Courier New", Courier, Monospaced; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant-numeric: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin-bottom: 20px; padding: 5px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; word-wrap: break-word;">$ sudo ls /etc/letsencrypt/live/<strong style="-webkit-font-smoothing: subpixel-antialiased; border: 0px; color: inherit; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">yourdomain.com</strong></pre>
<div style="-webkit-font-smoothing: subpixel-antialiased; background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #222222; font-family: Montserrat; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant-numeric: inherit; line-height: 28px; margin-bottom: 20px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
That there are four files:</div>
<ul style="-webkit-font-smoothing: subpixel-antialiased; background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #222222; font-family: Montserrat; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant-numeric: inherit; line-height: 28px; list-style-image: initial; list-style-position: initial; margin: 0px 0px 20px 30px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
<li style="-webkit-font-smoothing: subpixel-antialiased; border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: 18px; margin: 0px 0px 12px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">cert.pem – your domain’s certificate</li>
<li style="-webkit-font-smoothing: subpixel-antialiased; border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: 18px; margin: 0px 0px 12px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">chain.pem – the Let’s Encrypt chain certificate</li>
<li style="-webkit-font-smoothing: subpixel-antialiased; border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: 18px; margin: 0px 0px 12px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">fullchain.pem – a concatenated (combined) file of cert.pem and chain.pem</li>
<li style="-webkit-font-smoothing: subpixel-antialiased; border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: 18px; margin: 0px 0px 12px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">privkey.pem – your certificate’s private key</li>
</ul>
<div style="-webkit-font-smoothing: subpixel-antialiased; background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #222222; font-family: Montserrat; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant-numeric: inherit; line-height: 28px; margin-bottom: 20px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
You’ll need <strong style="-webkit-font-smoothing: subpixel-antialiased; border: 0px; color: inherit; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">fullchain.pem</strong> and <strong style="-webkit-font-smoothing: subpixel-antialiased; border: 0px; color: inherit; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">privkey.pem</strong>, so mentally note where those are:</div>
<pre style="-webkit-font-smoothing: subpixel-antialiased; background: rgb(18, 18, 20); border: 1px solid rgb(102, 102, 102); color: #cccccc; font-family: "Courier New", Courier, Monospaced; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant-numeric: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin-bottom: 20px; padding: 5px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; word-wrap: break-word;">/etc/letsencrypt/live/<span class="highlight" style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><strong style="-webkit-font-smoothing: subpixel-antialiased; border: 0px; color: inherit; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">yourdomain.com</strong>/fullchain.pem</span></pre>
<pre style="-webkit-font-smoothing: subpixel-antialiased; background: rgb(18, 18, 20); border: 1px solid rgb(102, 102, 102); color: #cccccc; font-family: "Courier New", Courier, Monospaced; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant-numeric: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin-bottom: 20px; padding: 5px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; word-wrap: break-word;">/etc/letsencrypt/live/<strong style="-webkit-font-smoothing: subpixel-antialiased; border: 0px; color: inherit; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">yourdomain.com</strong><span class="highlight" style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">/privkey.pem</span></pre>
<div style="-webkit-font-smoothing: subpixel-antialiased; background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #222222; font-family: Montserrat; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant-numeric: inherit; line-height: 28px; margin-bottom: 20px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
Without those, we can’t set up the next part: the Nginx configuration.</div>
<h3 style="-webkit-font-smoothing: subpixel-antialiased; background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #222222; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 28px; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-weight: 300; line-height: initial; margin-bottom: 10px !important; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
Step 3: Setting up Nginx</h3>
<div style="-webkit-font-smoothing: subpixel-antialiased; background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #222222; font-family: Montserrat; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant-numeric: inherit; line-height: 28px; margin-bottom: 20px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
<em style="-webkit-font-smoothing: subpixel-antialiased; border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">This is where the tutorial diverges from other similar tutorials. Other tutorials have you redirect the non-SSL traffic into the SSL traffic, but we actually need to keep the non-SSL and SSL traffic open with the same configuration, and use plugins to force SSL on the WordPress site. Otherwise, plugins such as Jetpack will cease to function correctly. </em></div>
<div style="-webkit-font-smoothing: subpixel-antialiased; background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #222222; font-family: Montserrat; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant-numeric: inherit; line-height: 28px; margin-bottom: 20px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
We’re going to change the server configuration slightly from when we set it up initially. We’re still going to use all of the same variables from before, but we’re adding our elements to define the SSL certificates:</div>
<pre class="p2" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: subpixel-antialiased; background: rgb(18, 18, 20); border: 1px solid rgb(102, 102, 102); color: #cccccc; font-family: "Courier New", Courier, Monospaced; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant-numeric: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin-bottom: 20px; padding: 5px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; word-wrap: break-word;"># Define the microcache path.
fastcgi_cache_path /etc/nginx/cache levels=1:2 keys_zone=microcache:100m inactive=60m;

server {
 listen [::]:80;
 listen 80;
<span style="border: 0px; color: red; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> listen 443 ssl;</span>

root /sites/<strong style="-webkit-font-smoothing: subpixel-antialiased; border: 0px; color: inherit; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">yourdomain.com</strong>/htdocs;
 index index.php index.html index.htm;

server_name <strong style="-webkit-font-smoothing: subpixel-antialiased; border: 0px; color: inherit; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">yourdomain.com</strong> www.<strong style="-webkit-font-smoothing: subpixel-antialiased; border: 0px; color: inherit; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">yourdomain.com</strong>;

<span style="border: 0px; color: red; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">ssl_certificate /etc/letsencrypt/live/<strong style="-webkit-font-smoothing: subpixel-antialiased; border: 0px; color: inherit; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">yourdomain.com</strong>/fullchain.pem;</span>
<span style="border: 0px; color: red; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> ssl_certificate_key /etc/letsencrypt/live/<strong style="-webkit-font-smoothing: subpixel-antialiased; border: 0px; color: inherit; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">yourdomain.com</strong>/privkey.pem;</span>
<span style="border: 0px; color: red; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> ssl_protocols TLSv1 TLSv1.1 TLSv1.2;</span>
<span style="border: 0px; color: red; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> ssl_prefer_server_ciphers on;</span>
<span style="border: 0px; color: red; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> ssl_ciphers 'EECDH+AESGCM:EDH+AESGCM:AES256+EECDH:AES256+EDH';</span>

# Include the basic h5bp config set
 include h5bp/basic.conf;
 
 location / {
 index index.php;
 try_files $uri $uri/ /index.php?$args;
 }
 
 location ~ \.php$ {
 fastcgi_cache microcache;
 fastcgi_cache_key $scheme$host$request_method$request_uri;
 fastcgi_cache_valid 200 304 10m;
 fastcgi_cache_use_stale updating;
 fastcgi_max_temp_file_size 1M;
 fastcgi_pass 127.0.0.1:9000;
 fastcgi_index index.php;
 fastcgi_param SCRIPT_FILENAME $document_root$fastcgi_script_name;
 include fastcgi_params;
 
 # Local variables to track whether to serve a microcached page or not.
 set $no_cache_set 0;
 set $no_cache_get 0;
 
 # If a request comes in with a X-Nginx-Cache-Purge: 1 header, do not grab from cache
 # But note that we will still store to cache
 # We use this to proactively update items in the cache!
 if ( $http_x_nginx_cache_purge ) {
 set $no_cache_get 1;
 }
 
 # If the user has a user logged-in cookie, circumvent the microcache.
 if ( $http_cookie ~* "comment_author_|wordpress_(?!test_cookie)|wp-postpass_" ) {
 set $no_cache_set 1;
 set $no_cache_get 1;
 }
 
 # fastcgi_no_cache means "Do not store this proxy response in the cache"
 fastcgi_no_cache $no_cache_set;
 
 # fastcgi_cache_bypass means "Do not look in the cache for this request"
 fastcgi_cache_bypass $no_cache_get;
 }
}</pre>
<div style="-webkit-font-smoothing: subpixel-antialiased; background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #222222; font-family: Montserrat; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant-numeric: inherit; line-height: 28px; margin-bottom: 20px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
The variables in red are new.  Walking through them, we end up doing the following:</div>
<ul style="-webkit-font-smoothing: subpixel-antialiased; background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #222222; font-family: Montserrat; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant-numeric: inherit; line-height: 28px; list-style-image: initial; list-style-position: initial; margin: 0px 0px 20px 30px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
<li style="-webkit-font-smoothing: subpixel-antialiased; border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: 18px; margin: 0px 0px 12px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Adding a ‘listen’ reference to allow traffic to flow through port 443, the secure SSL port.</li>
<li style="-webkit-font-smoothing: subpixel-antialiased; border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: 18px; margin: 0px 0px 12px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">setting the paths for the certificate and certificate key – <strong style="-webkit-font-smoothing: subpixel-antialiased; border: 0px; color: inherit; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">fullchain.pem</strong> and <strong style="-webkit-font-smoothing: subpixel-antialiased; border: 0px; color: inherit; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">privkey.pem</strong> – that we generated earlier.</li>
<li style="-webkit-font-smoothing: subpixel-antialiased; border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: 18px; margin: 0px 0px 12px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Setting an additional layer of security by specifying what ciphers and protocols we want to allow. The list above is a very modern list and will disallow outdated or insecure protocols from attempting to use the secure site.</li>
</ul>
<div style="-webkit-font-smoothing: subpixel-antialiased; background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #222222; font-family: Montserrat; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant-numeric: inherit; line-height: 28px; margin-bottom: 20px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
Save and exit, and restart your webserver:</div>
<pre style="-webkit-font-smoothing: subpixel-antialiased; background: rgb(18, 18, 20); border: 1px solid rgb(102, 102, 102); color: #cccccc; font-family: "Courier New", Courier, Monospaced; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant-numeric: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin-bottom: 20px; padding: 5px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; word-wrap: break-word;">$ sudo service nginx start</pre>
<div style="-webkit-font-smoothing: subpixel-antialiased; background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #222222; font-family: Montserrat; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant-numeric: inherit; line-height: 28px; margin-bottom: 20px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
Technically, we’re finished! You can visit https://yourdomain.com or https://www.yourdomain.com and see the secure site in its full glory!</div>
<h3 style="-webkit-font-smoothing: subpixel-antialiased; background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #222222; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 28px; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-weight: 300; line-height: initial; margin-bottom: 10px !important; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
Step 4: Post-Setup for WordPress</h3>
<div style="-webkit-font-smoothing: subpixel-antialiased; background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #222222; font-family: Montserrat; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant-numeric: inherit; line-height: 28px; margin-bottom: 20px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
You may notice that the lock isn’t green (it may be greyed out). We still need to set WordPress to specifically use the HTTPS traffic over the non-HTTPS traffic. We can do that with two steps:</div>
<ol style="-webkit-font-smoothing: subpixel-antialiased; background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #222222; font-family: Montserrat; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant-numeric: inherit; line-height: 28px; list-style-image: initial; list-style-position: initial; margin: 0px 0px 20px 30px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
<li style="-webkit-font-smoothing: subpixel-antialiased; border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: 18px; margin: 0px 0px 12px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Change the site_url and blog_url to <strong style="-webkit-font-smoothing: subpixel-antialiased; border: 0px; color: inherit; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">https://yourdomain.com. </strong>You can do this either in the WordPress Settings > General screen, or by editing your wp-config.php file and adding these variables:<pre style="-webkit-font-smoothing: subpixel-antialiased; background: rgb(18, 18, 20); border: 1px solid rgb(102, 102, 102); color: #cccccc; font-family: "Courier New", Courier, Monospaced; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin-bottom: 20px; padding: 5px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; word-wrap: break-word;">define('WP_HOME','https://yourdomain.com');
define('WP_SITEURL','https://yourdomain.com');</pre>
</li>
<li style="-webkit-font-smoothing: subpixel-antialiased; border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: 18px; margin: 0px 0px 12px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Using the <a href="https://wordpress.org/plugins/wp-force-ssl/" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: subpixel-antialiased; border: 0px; color: #333333; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">WordPress Force SSL</a> to redirect all other traffic (images, links, etc) from non-HTTPS to HTTPS.</li>
</ol>
<div style="-webkit-font-smoothing: subpixel-antialiased; background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #222222; font-family: Montserrat; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant-numeric: inherit; line-height: 28px; margin-bottom: 20px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
<em style="-webkit-font-smoothing: subpixel-antialiased; border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Note: Other tutorials, as I mentioned above, require you to redirect the non-SSL traffic in, but I found that this caused problems with plugins that require port 80 to be free and clear – like Jetpack. I wasn’t getting any site stats for a few days and had to dive in to figure out why. Turns out it was being rejected at the redirection point. Opening port 80, and forcing the redirection at the WordPress level, did the trick.</em></div>
<h3 style="-webkit-font-smoothing: subpixel-antialiased; background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #222222; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 28px; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-weight: 300; line-height: initial; margin-bottom: 10px !important; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
Step 5: Auto-Renewals of SSL Certificates</h3>
<div style="-webkit-font-smoothing: subpixel-antialiased; background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #222222; font-family: Montserrat; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant-numeric: inherit; line-height: 28px; margin-bottom: 20px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
The Let’s Encrypt certificates expire after 90 days. Let’s set up a server-side cron job (a script that runs automatically) to make sure we don’t have to worry about it again.</div>
<div style="-webkit-font-smoothing: subpixel-antialiased; background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #222222; font-family: Montserrat; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant-numeric: inherit; line-height: 28px; margin-bottom: 20px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
Instead of the standalone script we ran earlier, we’re going to set up a webroot script to run automagically in the background. Let’s Encrypt will use a special folder in your web root (/.well-known) to place its files, so let’s make sure that the server can access anything in those folders:</div>
<pre style="-webkit-font-smoothing: subpixel-antialiased; background: rgb(18, 18, 20); border: 1px solid rgb(102, 102, 102); color: #cccccc; font-family: "Courier New", Courier, Monospaced; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant-numeric: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin-bottom: 20px; padding: 5px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; word-wrap: break-word;">$ sudo nano /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/<strong style="-webkit-font-smoothing: subpixel-antialiased; border: 0px; color: inherit; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">yourdomain.com</strong></pre>
<div style="-webkit-font-smoothing: subpixel-antialiased; background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #222222; font-family: Montserrat; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant-numeric: inherit; line-height: 28px; margin-bottom: 20px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
In the “server” block, add the following:</div>
<pre class="code-pre " style="-webkit-font-smoothing: subpixel-antialiased; background: rgb(18, 18, 20); border: 1px solid rgb(102, 102, 102); color: #cccccc; font-family: "Courier New", Courier, Monospaced; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant-numeric: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin-bottom: 20px; padding: 5px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; word-wrap: break-word;">location ~ /.well-known {
     allow all;
}</pre>
<div style="-webkit-font-smoothing: subpixel-antialiased; background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #222222; font-family: Montserrat; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant-numeric: inherit; line-height: 28px; margin-bottom: 20px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
Save and exit. This will open up that location’s files for letsencrypt, and drop in a hidden file that the scripts will use for validation. This way, we can keep our web server running – and not have to stop it to renew the certificates.</div>
<div style="-webkit-font-smoothing: subpixel-antialiased; background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #222222; font-family: Montserrat; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant-numeric: inherit; line-height: 28px; margin-bottom: 20px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
You may want to figure out what your web root folder is. If you only have one site, it’ll be at /sites/<strong style="-webkit-font-smoothing: subpixel-antialiased; border: 0px; color: inherit; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">yourdomain.com</strong>/htdocs (if you’ve been following my tutorials – otherwise, it’ll be different for each user).</div>
<div style="-webkit-font-smoothing: subpixel-antialiased; background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #222222; font-family: Montserrat; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant-numeric: inherit; line-height: 28px; margin-bottom: 20px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
Run this script, and make sure the variables are filled in with your information:</div>
<pre style="-webkit-font-smoothing: subpixel-antialiased; background: rgb(18, 18, 20); border: 1px solid rgb(102, 102, 102); color: #cccccc; font-family: "Courier New", Courier, Monospaced; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant-numeric: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin-bottom: 20px; padding: 5px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; word-wrap: break-word;">$ cd /opt/letsencrypt
./letsencrypt-auto certonly -a webroot --agree-tos --renew-by-default --webroot-path=/sites/<strong style="-webkit-font-smoothing: subpixel-antialiased; border: 0px; color: inherit; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">yourdomain.com</strong>/htdocs -d <strong style="-webkit-font-smoothing: subpixel-antialiased; border: 0px; color: inherit; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">yourdomain.com</strong> -d <strong style="-webkit-font-smoothing: subpixel-antialiased; border: 0px; color: inherit; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">www.yourdomain.com</strong></pre>
<div style="-webkit-font-smoothing: subpixel-antialiased; background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #222222; font-family: Montserrat; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant-numeric: inherit; line-height: 28px; margin-bottom: 20px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
This goes through the prompts we filled in earlier, renews the certificate, and passes it through to the server (in the same locations you set up earlier).</div>
<div style="-webkit-font-smoothing: subpixel-antialiased; background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #222222; font-family: Montserrat; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant-numeric: inherit; line-height: 28px; margin-bottom: 20px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
Restart Nginx…</div>
<pre style="-webkit-font-smoothing: subpixel-antialiased; background: rgb(18, 18, 20); border: 1px solid rgb(102, 102, 102); color: #cccccc; font-family: "Courier New", Courier, Monospaced; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant-numeric: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin-bottom: 20px; padding: 5px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; word-wrap: break-word;">$ sudo service nginx reload</pre>
<div style="-webkit-font-smoothing: subpixel-antialiased; background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #222222; font-family: Montserrat; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant-numeric: inherit; line-height: 28px; margin-bottom: 20px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
…to have it use the newly created certificates.</div>
<div style="-webkit-font-smoothing: subpixel-antialiased; background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #222222; font-family: Montserrat; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant-numeric: inherit; line-height: 28px; margin-bottom: 20px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
Now we can create a cron job to automate this process.</div>
<div style="-webkit-font-smoothing: subpixel-antialiased; background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #222222; font-family: Montserrat; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant-numeric: inherit; line-height: 28px; margin-bottom: 20px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
Instead of having this long string entered in each time, let’s set up a configuration file we can refer to if we have problems or questions. A sample file is already provided, so we can start there to save time:</div>
<pre style="-webkit-font-smoothing: subpixel-antialiased; background: rgb(18, 18, 20); border: 1px solid rgb(102, 102, 102); color: #cccccc; font-family: "Courier New", Courier, Monospaced; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant-numeric: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin-bottom: 20px; padding: 5px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; word-wrap: break-word;">$ sudo cp /opt/letsencrypt/examples/cli.ini /usr/local/etc/le-renew-webroot.ini</pre>
<div style="-webkit-font-smoothing: subpixel-antialiased; background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #222222; font-family: Montserrat; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant-numeric: inherit; line-height: 28px; margin-bottom: 20px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
Edit the file with your editor of choice:</div>
<pre style="-webkit-font-smoothing: subpixel-antialiased; background: rgb(18, 18, 20); border: 1px solid rgb(102, 102, 102); color: #cccccc; font-family: "Courier New", Courier, Monospaced; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant-numeric: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin-bottom: 20px; padding: 5px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; word-wrap: break-word;">$ sudo nano /usr/local/etc/le-renew-webroot.ini</pre>
<div style="-webkit-font-smoothing: subpixel-antialiased; background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #222222; font-family: Montserrat; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant-numeric: inherit; line-height: 28px; margin-bottom: 20px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
There’s a lot of commented-out (and useless) stuff in this file. So, let’s cut it down and fill in only the essentials: email address, domains, and the webroot authentication stuff.  You should have something similar to this:</div>
<pre style="-webkit-font-smoothing: subpixel-antialiased; background: rgb(18, 18, 20); border: 1px solid rgb(102, 102, 102); color: #cccccc; font-family: "Courier New", Courier, Monospaced; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant-numeric: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin-bottom: 20px; padding: 5px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; word-wrap: break-word;"># Use a 4096 bit RSA key instead of 2048
rsa-key-size = 4096</pre>
<pre style="-webkit-font-smoothing: subpixel-antialiased; background: rgb(18, 18, 20); border: 1px solid rgb(102, 102, 102); color: #cccccc; font-family: "Courier New", Courier, Monospaced; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant-numeric: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin-bottom: 20px; padding: 5px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; word-wrap: break-word;"># Registered Email
email = <strong style="-webkit-font-smoothing: subpixel-antialiased; border: 0px; color: inherit; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">you@yourdomain.com</strong></pre>
<pre style="-webkit-font-smoothing: subpixel-antialiased; background: rgb(18, 18, 20); border: 1px solid rgb(102, 102, 102); color: #cccccc; font-family: "Courier New", Courier, Monospaced; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant-numeric: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin-bottom: 20px; padding: 5px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; word-wrap: break-word;"># Domain(s) to Secure
domains = <strong style="-webkit-font-smoothing: subpixel-antialiased; border: 0px; color: inherit; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">yourdomain.com</strong>, <strong style="-webkit-font-smoothing: subpixel-antialiased; border: 0px; color: inherit; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">www.yourdomain.com</strong></pre>
<pre style="-webkit-font-smoothing: subpixel-antialiased; background: rgb(18, 18, 20); border: 1px solid rgb(102, 102, 102); color: #cccccc; font-family: "Courier New", Courier, Monospaced; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant-numeric: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin-bottom: 20px; padding: 5px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; word-wrap: break-word;"># Webroot Authentication and Path
authenticator = webroot
webroot-path = /sites/<strong style="-webkit-font-smoothing: subpixel-antialiased; border: 0px; color: inherit; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">yourdomain.com</strong>/htdocs</pre>
<div style="-webkit-font-smoothing: subpixel-antialiased; background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #222222; font-family: Montserrat; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant-numeric: inherit; line-height: 28px; margin-bottom: 20px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
There’s all the information we used earlier, in a nice and compact format. Let’s test it to see if the certificate renews this way:</div>
<pre class="code-pre " style="-webkit-font-smoothing: subpixel-antialiased; background: rgb(18, 18, 20); border: 1px solid rgb(102, 102, 102); color: #cccccc; font-family: "Courier New", Courier, Monospaced; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant-numeric: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin-bottom: 20px; padding: 5px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; word-wrap: break-word;">$ cd opt/letsencrypt
$ ./letsencrypt-auto certonly -a webroot --renew-by-default --config /usr/local/etc/le-renew-webroot.ini</pre>
<div style="-webkit-font-smoothing: subpixel-antialiased; background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #222222; font-family: Montserrat; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant-numeric: inherit; line-height: 28px; margin-bottom: 20px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
Notice how we set the –config flag to read the file we just created.  If all goes well, reload nginx again – just in case!</div>
<div style="-webkit-font-smoothing: subpixel-antialiased; background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #222222; font-family: Montserrat; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant-numeric: inherit; line-height: 28px; margin-bottom: 20px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
Finally we can set up this script with a cron job.</div>
<div style="-webkit-font-smoothing: subpixel-antialiased; background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #222222; font-family: Montserrat; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant-numeric: inherit; line-height: 28px; margin-bottom: 20px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
There’s a Gist that has a nice packaged script we can run. Do your due dilligence and look it over before you install it.</div>
<pre style="-webkit-font-smoothing: subpixel-antialiased; background: rgb(18, 18, 20); border: 1px solid rgb(102, 102, 102); color: #cccccc; font-family: "Courier New", Courier, Monospaced; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant-numeric: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin-bottom: 20px; padding: 5px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; word-wrap: break-word;">$ sudo curl -L -o /usr/local/sbin/le-renew-webroot https://gist.githubusercontent.com/thisismitch/e1b603165523df66d5cc/raw/fbffbf358e96110d5566f13677d9bd5f4f65794c/le-renew-webroot</pre>
<pre style="-webkit-font-smoothing: subpixel-antialiased; background: rgb(18, 18, 20); border: 1px solid rgb(102, 102, 102); color: #cccccc; font-family: "Courier New", Courier, Monospaced; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant-numeric: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin-bottom: 20px; padding: 5px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; word-wrap: break-word;">$ sudo chmod +x /usr/local/sbin/le-renew-webroot</pre>
<div style="-webkit-font-smoothing: subpixel-antialiased; background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #222222; font-family: Montserrat; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant-numeric: inherit; line-height: 28px; margin-bottom: 20px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
This script can be executed anywhere. If you want, you can use it now to see how many days are left until your certificate needs to be renewed:</div>
<pre style="-webkit-font-smoothing: subpixel-antialiased; background: rgb(18, 18, 20); border: 1px solid rgb(102, 102, 102); color: #cccccc; font-family: "Courier New", Courier, Monospaced; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant-numeric: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin-bottom: 20px; padding: 5px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; word-wrap: break-word;">$ sudo le-renew-webroot</pre>
<pre class="code-pre " style="-webkit-font-smoothing: subpixel-antialiased; background: rgb(18, 18, 20); border: 1px solid rgb(102, 102, 102); color: #cccccc; font-family: "Courier New", Courier, Monospaced; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant-numeric: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin-bottom: 20px; padding: 5px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; word-wrap: break-word;">Checking expiration date for <span class="highlight" style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">example.com</span>...
The certificate is up to date, no need for renewal (89 days left).</pre>
<div style="-webkit-font-smoothing: subpixel-antialiased; background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #222222; font-family: Montserrat; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant-numeric: inherit; line-height: 28px; margin-bottom: 20px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
Then, the cron job itself:</div>
<pre style="-webkit-font-smoothing: subpixel-antialiased; background: rgb(18, 18, 20); border: 1px solid rgb(102, 102, 102); color: #cccccc; font-family: "Courier New", Courier, Monospaced; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant-numeric: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin-bottom: 20px; padding: 5px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; word-wrap: break-word;">$ sudo crontab -e</pre>
<div style="-webkit-font-smoothing: subpixel-antialiased; background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #222222; font-family: Montserrat; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant-numeric: inherit; line-height: 28px; margin-bottom: 20px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
Head to the bottom of the file and insert this all onto one line:</div>
<pre class="code-pre " style="-webkit-font-smoothing: subpixel-antialiased; background: rgb(18, 18, 20); border: 1px solid rgb(102, 102, 102); color: #cccccc; font-family: "Courier New", Courier, Monospaced; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant-numeric: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin-bottom: 20px; padding: 5px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; word-wrap: break-word;">30 2 * * 1 /usr/local/sbin/le-renew-webroot >> /var/log/le-renewal.log</pre>
<div style="-webkit-font-smoothing: subpixel-antialiased; background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #222222; font-family: Montserrat; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant-numeric: inherit; line-height: 28px; margin-bottom: 20px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
There’ll be a log file created at /var/log/le-renewal.log, so if anything goes awry you’ll have a reference as to how to fix it.</div>
<div style="-webkit-font-smoothing: subpixel-antialiased; background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #222222; font-family: Montserrat; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant-numeric: inherit; line-height: 28px; margin-bottom: 20px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
And that’s it!  You’re now running an amazing free encryption from Let’s Encrypt, letting it renew automatically, and allowing WordPress’ finicky internal features (like Jetpack) still authenticate.</div>
</div>

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Yes, there is a "Secret" to using Excel. But what does that mean? Is this a gimmick? No, it's honest to goodness advice...

Dreamweaver Form Validation Using Spry - Tutorial

<div><br/>				<p>Hi everyone and welcome to my <b>Dreamweaver Form Validation Tutorial</b>, glad you could make it!!</p><p>I guess you're here to learn so lets jump right on it.</p><p>1. Start by Creating a new HTML Document.</p><p>2. Go to the insert panel and select Form from the Drop down menu.</p><p>3. Click the Form button at the very top to insert a form tag in you Dreamweaver document. The Form tag is where you enter the settings for the whole form ex. where you want to send it and how to send the form.</p><p>4. Next lets insert a table inside the form to be able to organize the text boxes. In order to do this select "Common" from the Drop Down list in the insert panel and the click on "Table". This opens up a Table Dialog Box.</p><p>5. Inside the Dialog enter the following and the press OK.</p><p>Rows: 4 Columns: 2 Table Width: 400 pixels Border Thickness: 0 pixels</p><p>6. In the left column on the first line enter "Name:"</p><p>7. In the right column insert a Spry Validation Text Field by going to the Forms drop down on the Insert panel and click on "Spry Validation Text Field".</p><p>8. A Input Tag dialog will appear where you can give the tag some attributes. Enter name in the ID text field and press OK.</p><p>9. Repeat the steps 6-8 in the second row of the table. Instead of "name" use "email" this time.</p><p>10. In the first column on the 3 row write "Comment:" and in the second column insert a "Spry Validation Text Area" instead of Text Filed. Give the text area the ID "comment" and press OK.</p><p>11. In the last row of the table insert a Button in one of the columns and give it the ID send.</p><p>Now, all the objects are added to the form. Lets enter some Validation settings.</p><p>12. Select the first validation field by clicking on the blue outline around the text box. The go down to the Properties panel and enter "2" inside the "Min chars".</p><p>This tells Dreamweaver that it needs to be at least 2 characters in that text field in order to send it.</p><p>13. Select the email validation field and change the "Type" Drop down, found in the properties panel, to "E-mail". This tells Dreamweaver that the text inserted in this form needs to have the form of an email address.</p><p>To be able to send the form in some way you need to apply some settings to the form itself. The easiest way to send a form is by using the visitors own email program to send it via there own email address. To do this follow the next steps.</p><p>14. Select the form by clicking on the red outline around the table. 15. In the properties panel select method "POST" and enter this in the action text box: "mailto:your-email@address.com"</p><p>Of course you need to change it to your own email address.</p><p>So finally lets save the form by going in to File - Save. Dreamweaver then prompts you that it's going to copy two files to your site folder, your only option is to click OK. These files are needed by your web browser in order to validate the form.</p><p>You can now test the form by clicking on globe right next to the Title text area in the top of your window.</p><p>The method of using "mailto:" to send the form is not the best and most secure one. On thing that is easily done to improve the safety is by encoding the mailto function or by using a PHP script to send your form. Dreamweaver Tutorials on how to do this can be found on many places on the web. Google is your Friend!</p>			</div>

Linux Dreamweaver Form Validation Using Spry - Tutorial

Hi everyone and welcome to my Dreamweaver Form Validation Tutorial , glad you could make it!! I guess you're here to learn so lets ...

How To Uninstall CyberLink PowerDirector From Your PC - Complete Uninstall Tutorial

<div><br/>				<p>The <strong>CyberLink PowerDirector program </strong>is a type of package used to edit and produce video outputs and it is primarily used to create videos you made yourself. This program is one of the leading products in the industry today but despite its success in the market, it frequently brings about problems for its users. The most common complaints are the failure of the program to install properly. If you are having this problem right now, the best thing for you to do is to uninstall this program and repeat the installation process. When uninstalling, make sure you take out all the files it has.</p><p><em><u><strong>How To Uninstall CyberLink PowerDirector</strong></u></em></p><p>There are two methods you can choose from in removing the Power Director: manually or with the use of a program, Final Uninstaller (download and run).  The convenient method for this one is the use of an automated tool since the task can be quite arduous considering all the files you will have to locate and remove. For the manual method, you will have to go to the Add/Remove Programs tab. You can find this by going to START>Control Panel (Windows XP) or from Control Panel> Uninstall A Program (Windows Vista and 7). You will see a list of programs to choose from, among which you will locate the Power Director and remove. A set of instructions will follow and all you have to do is follow them. After doing so, delete the files left behind by this program. Go to MY COMPUTER> C:/Program Files and select all the files that the software had left. Select all of them and press SHIFT+DELETE to remove the files permanently without going through the Recycle bin, then restart the computer.</p><p>Next, clean out the registry using the Frontline Registry Cleaner. Most likely, the software has some leftover files that you had not located. They could cause issues and potential errors. The settings, options and registry keys are all contained there so its maintenance should be one of your priorities. The registry cleaner can fix the existing errors and prevent potential ones from happening. Simply download, install and run the program. Even if you opt to use the Final Uninstaller, it is still recommended by experts to run a scan of the registry and clean it of leftover files. Most often, users fail to see the delicate situation of the registry database. Since it is constantly being used, it becomes overworked which leads to damage. All the settings and files that Windows needs are contained there and they are constantly recalled to be of use whenever the computer runs its operations. Installing software makes use of registry data; uninstalling them will also make use of the registry. For the system processes, the registry is always in use. What would happen if it got damaged? Obviously, the computer will not work properly. You will experience a slowing down of the computer, the failure of programs to load, etc. The best solution to this is a registry cleaner to maintain the registry.</p>			</div>

Linux How To Uninstall CyberLink PowerDirector From Your PC - Complete Uninstall Tutorial

The CyberLink PowerDirector program is a type of package used to edit and produce video outputs and it is primarily used to create vide...

Moving From Windows to Linux - Desktop Migration Tips

<div><br/>				<p>As <a name="YANDEX_1"></a><nobr><a href="http://hghltd.yandex.net/yandbtm?fmode=inject&url=http%3A%2F%2Fezinearticles.com%2F%3FMoving-From-Windows-to-Linux---Desktop-Migration-Tips%26id%3D3728787&tld=com&lang=en&la=1458999040&tm=1462293741&text=site%3Aezinearticles.com%20linux%20inurl%3Aid&l10n=en&mime=html&sign=8ed324ddd3bfe5614ca2b17ce187b2c1&keyno=0#YANDEX_0"></a><span class='highlight highlight_active'> Linux </span><a href="http://hghltd.yandex.net/yandbtm?fmode=inject&url=http%3A%2F%2Fezinearticles.com%2F%3FMoving-From-Windows-to-Linux---Desktop-Migration-Tips%26id%3D3728787&tld=com&lang=en&la=1458999040&tm=1462293741&text=site%3Aezinearticles.com%20linux%20inurl%3Aid&l10n=en&mime=html&sign=8ed324ddd3bfe5614ca2b17ce187b2c1&keyno=0#YANDEX_2"></a></nobr> continues to gain market share in desktop operating systems, IT professionals and end users look for opportunities to switch from Windows to <a name="YANDEX_2"></a><nobr><a href="http://hghltd.yandex.net/yandbtm?fmode=inject&url=http%3A%2F%2Fezinearticles.com%2F%3FMoving-From-Windows-to-Linux---Desktop-Migration-Tips%26id%3D3728787&tld=com&lang=en&la=1458999040&tm=1462293741&text=site%3Aezinearticles.com%20linux%20inurl%3Aid&l10n=en&mime=html&sign=8ed324ddd3bfe5614ca2b17ce187b2c1&keyno=0#YANDEX_1"></a><span class='highlight highlight_active'> Linux </span><a href="http://hghltd.yandex.net/yandbtm?fmode=inject&url=http%3A%2F%2Fezinearticles.com%2F%3FMoving-From-Windows-to-Linux---Desktop-Migration-Tips%26id%3D3728787&tld=com&lang=en&la=1458999040&tm=1462293741&text=site%3Aezinearticles.com%20linux%20inurl%3Aid&l10n=en&mime=html&sign=8ed324ddd3bfe5614ca2b17ce187b2c1&keyno=0#YANDEX_3"></a></nobr>. An operating system that previously only dominated the server market, <a name="YANDEX_3"></a><nobr><a href="http://hghltd.yandex.net/yandbtm?fmode=inject&url=http%3A%2F%2Fezinearticles.com%2F%3FMoving-From-Windows-to-Linux---Desktop-Migration-Tips%26id%3D3728787&tld=com&lang=en&la=1458999040&tm=1462293741&text=site%3Aezinearticles.com%20linux%20inurl%3Aid&l10n=en&mime=html&sign=8ed324ddd3bfe5614ca2b17ce187b2c1&keyno=0#YANDEX_2"></a><span class='highlight highlight_active'> Linux </span><a href="http://hghltd.yandex.net/yandbtm?fmode=inject&url=http%3A%2F%2Fezinearticles.com%2F%3FMoving-From-Windows-to-Linux---Desktop-Migration-Tips%26id%3D3728787&tld=com&lang=en&la=1458999040&tm=1462293741&text=site%3Aezinearticles.com%20linux%20inurl%3Aid&l10n=en&mime=html&sign=8ed324ddd3bfe5614ca2b17ce187b2c1&keyno=0#YANDEX_4"></a></nobr> is finding its way to desktop computers. Driven by a variety of motivations: software cost, virus and spyware infections, frustration, or the need to try something new... <a name="YANDEX_4"></a><nobr><a href="http://hghltd.yandex.net/yandbtm?fmode=inject&url=http%3A%2F%2Fezinearticles.com%2F%3FMoving-From-Windows-to-Linux---Desktop-Migration-Tips%26id%3D3728787&tld=com&lang=en&la=1458999040&tm=1462293741&text=site%3Aezinearticles.com%20linux%20inurl%3Aid&l10n=en&mime=html&sign=8ed324ddd3bfe5614ca2b17ce187b2c1&keyno=0#YANDEX_3"></a><span class='highlight highlight_active'> Linux </span><a href="http://hghltd.yandex.net/yandbtm?fmode=inject&url=http%3A%2F%2Fezinearticles.com%2F%3FMoving-From-Windows-to-Linux---Desktop-Migration-Tips%26id%3D3728787&tld=com&lang=en&la=1458999040&tm=1462293741&text=site%3Aezinearticles.com%20linux%20inurl%3Aid&l10n=en&mime=html&sign=8ed324ddd3bfe5614ca2b17ce187b2c1&keyno=0#YANDEX_5"></a></nobr> on the desktop can work for you.</p><p><strong>What is <a name="YANDEX_5"></a><nobr><a href="http://hghltd.yandex.net/yandbtm?fmode=inject&url=http%3A%2F%2Fezinearticles.com%2F%3FMoving-From-Windows-to-Linux---Desktop-Migration-Tips%26id%3D3728787&tld=com&lang=en&la=1458999040&tm=1462293741&text=site%3Aezinearticles.com%20linux%20inurl%3Aid&l10n=en&mime=html&sign=8ed324ddd3bfe5614ca2b17ce187b2c1&keyno=0#YANDEX_4"></a><span class='highlight highlight_active'> Linux </span><a href="http://hghltd.yandex.net/yandbtm?fmode=inject&url=http%3A%2F%2Fezinearticles.com%2F%3FMoving-From-Windows-to-Linux---Desktop-Migration-Tips%26id%3D3728787&tld=com&lang=en&la=1458999040&tm=1462293741&text=site%3Aezinearticles.com%20linux%20inurl%3Aid&l10n=en&mime=html&sign=8ed324ddd3bfe5614ca2b17ce187b2c1&keyno=0#YANDEX_6"></a></nobr>?</strong></p><p>Understanding <a name="YANDEX_6"></a><nobr><a href="http://hghltd.yandex.net/yandbtm?fmode=inject&url=http%3A%2F%2Fezinearticles.com%2F%3FMoving-From-Windows-to-Linux---Desktop-Migration-Tips%26id%3D3728787&tld=com&lang=en&la=1458999040&tm=1462293741&text=site%3Aezinearticles.com%20linux%20inurl%3Aid&l10n=en&mime=html&sign=8ed324ddd3bfe5614ca2b17ce187b2c1&keyno=0#YANDEX_5"></a><span class='highlight highlight_active'> Linux </span><a href="http://hghltd.yandex.net/yandbtm?fmode=inject&url=http%3A%2F%2Fezinearticles.com%2F%3FMoving-From-Windows-to-Linux---Desktop-Migration-Tips%26id%3D3728787&tld=com&lang=en&la=1458999040&tm=1462293741&text=site%3Aezinearticles.com%20linux%20inurl%3Aid&l10n=en&mime=html&sign=8ed324ddd3bfe5614ca2b17ce187b2c1&keyno=0#YANDEX_7"></a></nobr> and the community that surrounds it is your first step. Technically, we've already misused the word <a name="YANDEX_7"></a><nobr><a href="http://hghltd.yandex.net/yandbtm?fmode=inject&url=http%3A%2F%2Fezinearticles.com%2F%3FMoving-From-Windows-to-Linux---Desktop-Migration-Tips%26id%3D3728787&tld=com&lang=en&la=1458999040&tm=1462293741&text=site%3Aezinearticles.com%20linux%20inurl%3Aid&l10n=en&mime=html&sign=8ed324ddd3bfe5614ca2b17ce187b2c1&keyno=0#YANDEX_6"></a><span class='highlight highlight_active'> Linux </span><a href="http://hghltd.yandex.net/yandbtm?fmode=inject&url=http%3A%2F%2Fezinearticles.com%2F%3FMoving-From-Windows-to-Linux---Desktop-Migration-Tips%26id%3D3728787&tld=com&lang=en&la=1458999040&tm=1462293741&text=site%3Aezinearticles.com%20linux%20inurl%3Aid&l10n=en&mime=html&sign=8ed324ddd3bfe5614ca2b17ce187b2c1&keyno=0#YANDEX_8"></a></nobr>. <a name="YANDEX_8"></a><nobr><a href="http://hghltd.yandex.net/yandbtm?fmode=inject&url=http%3A%2F%2Fezinearticles.com%2F%3FMoving-From-Windows-to-Linux---Desktop-Migration-Tips%26id%3D3728787&tld=com&lang=en&la=1458999040&tm=1462293741&text=site%3Aezinearticles.com%20linux%20inurl%3Aid&l10n=en&mime=html&sign=8ed324ddd3bfe5614ca2b17ce187b2c1&keyno=0#YANDEX_7"></a><span class='highlight highlight_active'> Linux </span><a href="http://hghltd.yandex.net/yandbtm?fmode=inject&url=http%3A%2F%2Fezinearticles.com%2F%3FMoving-From-Windows-to-Linux---Desktop-Migration-Tips%26id%3D3728787&tld=com&lang=en&la=1458999040&tm=1462293741&text=site%3Aezinearticles.com%20linux%20inurl%3Aid&l10n=en&mime=html&sign=8ed324ddd3bfe5614ca2b17ce187b2c1&keyno=0#YANDEX_9"></a></nobr> isn't the operating system... operating systems are based on <a name="YANDEX_9"></a><nobr><a href="http://hghltd.yandex.net/yandbtm?fmode=inject&url=http%3A%2F%2Fezinearticles.com%2F%3FMoving-From-Windows-to-Linux---Desktop-Migration-Tips%26id%3D3728787&tld=com&lang=en&la=1458999040&tm=1462293741&text=site%3Aezinearticles.com%20linux%20inurl%3Aid&l10n=en&mime=html&sign=8ed324ddd3bfe5614ca2b17ce187b2c1&keyno=0#YANDEX_8"></a><span class='highlight highlight_active'> Linux </span><a href="http://hghltd.yandex.net/yandbtm?fmode=inject&url=http%3A%2F%2Fezinearticles.com%2F%3FMoving-From-Windows-to-Linux---Desktop-Migration-Tips%26id%3D3728787&tld=com&lang=en&la=1458999040&tm=1462293741&text=site%3Aezinearticles.com%20linux%20inurl%3Aid&l10n=en&mime=html&sign=8ed324ddd3bfe5614ca2b17ce187b2c1&keyno=0#YANDEX_10"></a></nobr>. <a name="YANDEX_10"></a><nobr><a href="http://hghltd.yandex.net/yandbtm?fmode=inject&url=http%3A%2F%2Fezinearticles.com%2F%3FMoving-From-Windows-to-Linux---Desktop-Migration-Tips%26id%3D3728787&tld=com&lang=en&la=1458999040&tm=1462293741&text=site%3Aezinearticles.com%20linux%20inurl%3Aid&l10n=en&mime=html&sign=8ed324ddd3bfe5614ca2b17ce187b2c1&keyno=0#YANDEX_9"></a><span class='highlight highlight_active'> Linux </span><a href="http://hghltd.yandex.net/yandbtm?fmode=inject&url=http%3A%2F%2Fezinearticles.com%2F%3FMoving-From-Windows-to-Linux---Desktop-Migration-Tips%26id%3D3728787&tld=com&lang=en&la=1458999040&tm=1462293741&text=site%3Aezinearticles.com%20linux%20inurl%3Aid&l10n=en&mime=html&sign=8ed324ddd3bfe5614ca2b17ce187b2c1&keyno=0#YANDEX_11"></a></nobr> has paved a path for multiple distributions (or <a name="YANDEX_11"></a><nobr><a href="http://hghltd.yandex.net/yandbtm?fmode=inject&url=http%3A%2F%2Fezinearticles.com%2F%3FMoving-From-Windows-to-Linux---Desktop-Migration-Tips%26id%3D3728787&tld=com&lang=en&la=1458999040&tm=1462293741&text=site%3Aezinearticles.com%20linux%20inurl%3Aid&l10n=en&mime=html&sign=8ed324ddd3bfe5614ca2b17ce187b2c1&keyno=0#YANDEX_10"></a><span class='highlight highlight_active'> Linux </span><a href="http://hghltd.yandex.net/yandbtm?fmode=inject&url=http%3A%2F%2Fezinearticles.com%2F%3FMoving-From-Windows-to-Linux---Desktop-Migration-Tips%26id%3D3728787&tld=com&lang=en&la=1458999040&tm=1462293741&text=site%3Aezinearticles.com%20linux%20inurl%3Aid&l10n=en&mime=html&sign=8ed324ddd3bfe5614ca2b17ce187b2c1&keyno=0#YANDEX_12"></a></nobr> based operating systems to exist). When choosing a <a name="YANDEX_12"></a><nobr><a href="http://hghltd.yandex.net/yandbtm?fmode=inject&url=http%3A%2F%2Fezinearticles.com%2F%3FMoving-From-Windows-to-Linux---Desktop-Migration-Tips%26id%3D3728787&tld=com&lang=en&la=1458999040&tm=1462293741&text=site%3Aezinearticles.com%20linux%20inurl%3Aid&l10n=en&mime=html&sign=8ed324ddd3bfe5614ca2b17ce187b2c1&keyno=0#YANDEX_11"></a><span class='highlight highlight_active'> Linux </span><a href="http://hghltd.yandex.net/yandbtm?fmode=inject&url=http%3A%2F%2Fezinearticles.com%2F%3FMoving-From-Windows-to-Linux---Desktop-Migration-Tips%26id%3D3728787&tld=com&lang=en&la=1458999040&tm=1462293741&text=site%3Aezinearticles.com%20linux%20inurl%3Aid&l10n=en&mime=html&sign=8ed324ddd3bfe5614ca2b17ce187b2c1&keyno=0#YANDEX_13"></a></nobr> based operating system, you must find the distribution that's right for you.</p><p><strong>Choose Your Distribution</strong> <strong>(distro)</strong></p><p>Many distro's exist in the <a name="YANDEX_13"></a><nobr><a href="http://hghltd.yandex.net/yandbtm?fmode=inject&url=http%3A%2F%2Fezinearticles.com%2F%3FMoving-From-Windows-to-Linux---Desktop-Migration-Tips%26id%3D3728787&tld=com&lang=en&la=1458999040&tm=1462293741&text=site%3Aezinearticles.com%20linux%20inurl%3Aid&l10n=en&mime=html&sign=8ed324ddd3bfe5614ca2b17ce187b2c1&keyno=0#YANDEX_12"></a><span class='highlight highlight_active'> Linux </span><a href="http://hghltd.yandex.net/yandbtm?fmode=inject&url=http%3A%2F%2Fezinearticles.com%2F%3FMoving-From-Windows-to-Linux---Desktop-Migration-Tips%26id%3D3728787&tld=com&lang=en&la=1458999040&tm=1462293741&text=site%3Aezinearticles.com%20linux%20inurl%3Aid&l10n=en&mime=html&sign=8ed324ddd3bfe5614ca2b17ce187b2c1&keyno=0#YANDEX_14"></a></nobr> space. With so many options, understanding your needs and requirements will make choosing the appropriate distribution easier. Distro's can be very similar or very different, from user interface to how software packages are managed.</p><p>For a <a name="YANDEX_14"></a><nobr><a href="http://hghltd.yandex.net/yandbtm?fmode=inject&url=http%3A%2F%2Fezinearticles.com%2F%3FMoving-From-Windows-to-Linux---Desktop-Migration-Tips%26id%3D3728787&tld=com&lang=en&la=1458999040&tm=1462293741&text=site%3Aezinearticles.com%20linux%20inurl%3Aid&l10n=en&mime=html&sign=8ed324ddd3bfe5614ca2b17ce187b2c1&keyno=0#YANDEX_13"></a><span class='highlight highlight_active'> Linux </span><a href="http://hghltd.yandex.net/yandbtm?fmode=inject&url=http%3A%2F%2Fezinearticles.com%2F%3FMoving-From-Windows-to-Linux---Desktop-Migration-Tips%26id%3D3728787&tld=com&lang=en&la=1458999040&tm=1462293741&text=site%3Aezinearticles.com%20linux%20inurl%3Aid&l10n=en&mime=html&sign=8ed324ddd3bfe5614ca2b17ce187b2c1&keyno=0#YANDEX_15"></a></nobr> novice, we recommend a few flavors available today. Each one of these distro's maintains a different look and feel. Have a look at Ubuntu, sponsored by Canonical Ltd., Fedora sponsored by Red Hat Inc., or OpenSuSE sponsored by Novell. All of these <a name="YANDEX_15"></a><nobr><a href="http://hghltd.yandex.net/yandbtm?fmode=inject&url=http%3A%2F%2Fezinearticles.com%2F%3FMoving-From-Windows-to-Linux---Desktop-Migration-Tips%26id%3D3728787&tld=com&lang=en&la=1458999040&tm=1462293741&text=site%3Aezinearticles.com%20linux%20inurl%3Aid&l10n=en&mime=html&sign=8ed324ddd3bfe5614ca2b17ce187b2c1&keyno=0#YANDEX_14"></a><span class='highlight highlight_active'> Linux </span><a href="http://hghltd.yandex.net/yandbtm?fmode=inject&url=http%3A%2F%2Fezinearticles.com%2F%3FMoving-From-Windows-to-Linux---Desktop-Migration-Tips%26id%3D3728787&tld=com&lang=en&la=1458999040&tm=1462293741&text=site%3Aezinearticles.com%20linux%20inurl%3Aid&l10n=en&mime=html&sign=8ed324ddd3bfe5614ca2b17ce187b2c1&keyno=0#YANDEX_16"></a></nobr> distributions have a strong community of support, means of financial backing, and differences anxious for your evaluation.</p><p>These three operating systems are merely a popularity snapshot of what's available today. There are many other choices available. For example: Canonical maintains different versions including: EduBuntu - for education, MythBuntu - for tv and media, Ubuntu Studio - for audio/video enthusiasts... Some other distributions are: Mint, Mandriva, Debian, Arch, Puppy, Slackware, FreeBSD, Cent OS, Gentoo, Tiny Core... and the list goes on.</p><p><strong>Analyze and Strategize</strong></p><p>Knowing what is important to you in an operating system is just as valuable as knowing whats important to the people maintaining the distro, or the company sponsoring it. The following list will assist you in choosing a distro.</p><p><ul><br/><li>Is free community support available and adequate for my technical skill set?</li><br/> <li>Is commercial support available from multiple vendors?</li><br/> <li>Does the distro have financial backing and a good development community?</li><br/> <li>How long are updates, and more specifically security updates provided?</li><br/></ul><strong>Windows to <a name="YANDEX_16"></a><nobr><a href="http://hghltd.yandex.net/yandbtm?fmode=inject&url=http%3A%2F%2Fezinearticles.com%2F%3FMoving-From-Windows-to-Linux---Desktop-Migration-Tips%26id%3D3728787&tld=com&lang=en&la=1458999040&tm=1462293741&text=site%3Aezinearticles.com%20linux%20inurl%3Aid&l10n=en&mime=html&sign=8ed324ddd3bfe5614ca2b17ce187b2c1&keyno=0#YANDEX_15"></a><span class='highlight highlight_active'> Linux </span><a href="http://hghltd.yandex.net/yandbtm?fmode=inject&url=http%3A%2F%2Fezinearticles.com%2F%3FMoving-From-Windows-to-Linux---Desktop-Migration-Tips%26id%3D3728787&tld=com&lang=en&la=1458999040&tm=1462293741&text=site%3Aezinearticles.com%20linux%20inurl%3Aid&l10n=en&mime=html&sign=8ed324ddd3bfe5614ca2b17ce187b2c1&keyno=0#YANDEX_17"></a></nobr>... What to Expect?</strong></p><p>It's going to be different, understand why and it will be much easier. Don't expect the same, and you'll set yourself up for an experience that might not be as frustrating if you were anticipating clicking on a "My Computer" icon. The following tips and pointers will help you better prepare for transitioning from a Windows Desktop OS, to a <a name="YANDEX_17"></a><nobr><a href="http://hghltd.yandex.net/yandbtm?fmode=inject&url=http%3A%2F%2Fezinearticles.com%2F%3FMoving-From-Windows-to-Linux---Desktop-Migration-Tips%26id%3D3728787&tld=com&lang=en&la=1458999040&tm=1462293741&text=site%3Aezinearticles.com%20linux%20inurl%3Aid&l10n=en&mime=html&sign=8ed324ddd3bfe5614ca2b17ce187b2c1&keyno=0#YANDEX_16"></a><span class='highlight highlight_active'> Linux </span><a href="http://hghltd.yandex.net/yandbtm?fmode=inject&url=http%3A%2F%2Fezinearticles.com%2F%3FMoving-From-Windows-to-Linux---Desktop-Migration-Tips%26id%3D3728787&tld=com&lang=en&la=1458999040&tm=1462293741&text=site%3Aezinearticles.com%20linux%20inurl%3Aid&l10n=en&mime=html&sign=8ed324ddd3bfe5614ca2b17ce187b2c1&keyno=0#YANDEX_18"></a></nobr> based Desktop OS.</p><p>Compare Ubuntu 9.10 Desktop Edition to a generic version of the Windows Operating System.</p><p>Naming Schemes</p><p>The task bar, menu names, applications names and the like, won't necessarily be named the same. In Windows you use "Programs" in Ubuntu you use "Applications"... same thing, different name. Furthermore, in Ubuntu you navigate to "Places" as opposed to "My Computer" for documents and folders.</p><p>User Interface / Layout</p><p>In Ubuntu 9.10 (Karmic Koala), a task bar rests on the top and bottom of the screen. The top taskbar holds menu items for Applications, Places, and System. The bottom taskbar holds shortcuts to applications you are using, different desktop workspaces and the "Trash" formerly known as "Recycle Bin".</p><p>OpenOffice</p><p>OpenOffice.org - A free word processing application/platform maintained by Sun Microsystems includes applications for: Documents, Spreadsheets, Presentations, Drawings, and more. OpenOffice not only works on <a name="YANDEX_18"></a><nobr><a href="http://hghltd.yandex.net/yandbtm?fmode=inject&url=http%3A%2F%2Fezinearticles.com%2F%3FMoving-From-Windows-to-Linux---Desktop-Migration-Tips%26id%3D3728787&tld=com&lang=en&la=1458999040&tm=1462293741&text=site%3Aezinearticles.com%20linux%20inurl%3Aid&l10n=en&mime=html&sign=8ed324ddd3bfe5614ca2b17ce187b2c1&keyno=0#YANDEX_17"></a><span class='highlight highlight_active'> Linux </span><a href="http://hghltd.yandex.net/yandbtm?fmode=inject&url=http%3A%2F%2Fezinearticles.com%2F%3FMoving-From-Windows-to-Linux---Desktop-Migration-Tips%26id%3D3728787&tld=com&lang=en&la=1458999040&tm=1462293741&text=site%3Aezinearticles.com%20linux%20inurl%3Aid&l10n=en&mime=html&sign=8ed324ddd3bfe5614ca2b17ce187b2c1&keyno=0#YANDEX_19"></a></nobr>, but works on Windows as well. Many organizations successfully migrate to <a name="YANDEX_19"></a><nobr><a href="http://hghltd.yandex.net/yandbtm?fmode=inject&url=http%3A%2F%2Fezinearticles.com%2F%3FMoving-From-Windows-to-Linux---Desktop-Migration-Tips%26id%3D3728787&tld=com&lang=en&la=1458999040&tm=1462293741&text=site%3Aezinearticles.com%20linux%20inurl%3Aid&l10n=en&mime=html&sign=8ed324ddd3bfe5614ca2b17ce187b2c1&keyno=0#YANDEX_18"></a><span class='highlight highlight_active'> Linux </span><a href="http://hghltd.yandex.net/yandbtm?fmode=inject&url=http%3A%2F%2Fezinearticles.com%2F%3FMoving-From-Windows-to-Linux---Desktop-Migration-Tips%26id%3D3728787&tld=com&lang=en&la=1458999040&tm=1462293741&text=site%3Aezinearticles.com%20linux%20inurl%3Aid&l10n=en&mime=html&sign=8ed324ddd3bfe5614ca2b17ce187b2c1&keyno=0#YANDEX_20"></a></nobr> starting with a transition to OpenOffice on a Windows desktop. OpenOffice properly handles most Office document formats as well as others.</p><p><strong>There is Plenty More To Learn</strong></p><p><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_Windows_and_Linux" rel="nofollow" target="_new">Wikipedia - Comparison of Windows To <a name="YANDEX_20"></a><nobr><a href="http://hghltd.yandex.net/yandbtm?fmode=inject&url=http%3A%2F%2Fezinearticles.com%2F%3FMoving-From-Windows-to-Linux---Desktop-Migration-Tips%26id%3D3728787&tld=com&lang=en&la=1458999040&tm=1462293741&text=site%3Aezinearticles.com%20linux%20inurl%3Aid&l10n=en&mime=html&sign=8ed324ddd3bfe5614ca2b17ce187b2c1&keyno=0#YANDEX_19"></a><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_Windows_and_Linux" rel="nofollow" target="_new"><span class='highlight highlight_active'> Linux </span></A><a href="http://hghltd.yandex.net/yandbtm?fmode=inject&url=http%3A%2F%2Fezinearticles.com%2F%3FMoving-From-Windows-to-Linux---Desktop-Migration-Tips%26id%3D3728787&tld=com&lang=en&la=1458999040&tm=1462293741&text=site%3Aezinearticles.com%20linux%20inurl%3Aid&l10n=en&mime=html&sign=8ed324ddd3bfe5614ca2b17ce187b2c1&keyno=0#YANDEX_21"></a></nobr></a></p><p><a href="http://www.linux.com/archive/feature/113755" rel="nofollow" target="_new">Windows To <a name="YANDEX_21"></a><nobr><a href="http://hghltd.yandex.net/yandbtm?fmode=inject&url=http%3A%2F%2Fezinearticles.com%2F%3FMoving-From-Windows-to-Linux---Desktop-Migration-Tips%26id%3D3728787&tld=com&lang=en&la=1458999040&tm=1462293741&text=site%3Aezinearticles.com%20linux%20inurl%3Aid&l10n=en&mime=html&sign=8ed324ddd3bfe5614ca2b17ce187b2c1&keyno=0#YANDEX_20"></a><a href="http://www.linux.com/archive/feature/113755" rel="nofollow" target="_new"><span class='highlight highlight_active'> Linux </span></A><a href="http://hghltd.yandex.net/yandbtm?fmode=inject&url=http%3A%2F%2Fezinearticles.com%2F%3FMoving-From-Windows-to-Linux---Desktop-Migration-Tips%26id%3D3728787&tld=com&lang=en&la=1458999040&tm=1462293741&text=site%3Aezinearticles.com%20linux%20inurl%3Aid&l10n=en&mime=html&sign=8ed324ddd3bfe5614ca2b17ce187b2c1&keyno=0#YANDEX_22"></a></nobr> Migration Guide</a></p>			</div>

Linux Moving From Windows to Linux - Desktop Migration Tips

As Linux continues to gain market share in desktop operating systems, IT professionals and end users look for opportunities to switc...

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