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Issuing an ACME certificate using HTTP validation
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cert-manager can be used to obtain certificates from a CA using the ACME_ protocol.
The ACME protocol supports various challenge mechanisms which are used to prove
ownership of a domain so that a valid certificate can be issued for that domain.

One such challenge mechanism is the HTTP-01 challenge. With a HTTP-01 challenge,
you prove ownership of a domain by ensuring that a particular file is present at
the domain.
It is assumed that you control the domain if you are able to publish the given
file under a given path.

The following Issuer defines the necessary information to enable HTTP validation.
You can read more about the Issuer resource in the :doc:`Issuer reference docs </reference/issuers>`.

.. code-block:: yaml
   :linenos:

   apiVersion: certmanager.k8s.io/v1alpha1
   kind: Issuer
   metadata:
     name: letsencrypt-staging
     namespace: default
   spec:
     acme:
       # The ACME server URL
       server: https://acme-staging-v02.api.letsencrypt.org/directory
       # Email address used for ACME registration
       email: user@example.com
       # Name of a secret used to store the ACME account private key
       privateKeySecretRef:
         name: letsencrypt-staging
       # Enable the HTTP-01 challenge provider
       solvers:
       # An empty 'selector' means that this solver matches all domains
       - selector: {}
         http01
           ingress:
             class: nginx

We have specified the ACME server URL for Let's Encrypt's `staging environment`_.
The staging environment will not issue trusted certificates but is used to
ensure that the verification process is working properly before moving to
production. Let's Encrypt's production environment imposes much stricter
`rate limits`_, so to reduce the chance of you hitting those limits it is
highly recommended to start by using the staging environment. To move to
production, simply create a new Issuer with the URL set to
``https://acme-v02.api.letsencrypt.org/directory``.

The first stage of the ACME protocol is for the client to register with the
ACME server. This phase includes generating an asymmetric key pair which is
then associated with the email address specified in the Issuer. Make sure to
change this email address to a valid one that you own. It is commonly used to
send expiry notices when your certificates are coming up for renewal. The
generated private key is stored in a Secret named ``letsencrypt-staging``.

The presence of the ``http01`` field simply enables the HTTP-01 challenge for this
Issuer.
No further configuration is necessary or currently possible.

Once we have created the above Issuer we can use it to obtain a certificate.

.. code-block:: yaml
   :linenos:

   apiVersion: certmanager.k8s.io/v1alpha1
   kind: Certificate
   metadata:
     name: example-com
     namespace: default
   spec:
     secretName: example-com-tls
     issuerRef:
       name: letsencrypt-staging
     commonName: example.com
     dnsNames:
     - www.example.com

The Certificate resource describes our desired certificate and the possible
methods that can be used to obtain it. You can learn more about the Certificate
resource in the :doc:`reference docs </reference/certificates>`.
If the certificate is obtained successfully, the resulting key pair will be
stored in a secret called ``example-com-tls`` in the same namespace as the Certificate.

The certificate will have a common name of ``example.com`` and the
`Subject Alternative Names`_ (SANs) will be ``example.com`` and ``www.example.com``.

In our Certificate we have referenced the ``letsencrypt-staging`` Issuer above.
The Issuer must be in the same namespace as the Certificate.
If you want to reference a ClusterIssuer, which is a cluster-scoped version of
an Issuer, you must add ``kind: ClusterIssuer`` to the ``issuerRef`` stanza.

For more information on ClusterIssuers, read the
:doc:`ClusterIssuer reference docs </reference/clusterissuers>`.

The ``acme`` stanza defines the configuration for our ACME challenges.
Here we have defined the configuration for our HTTP-01 challenges which will be
used to verify domain ownership.
To verify ownership of each domain mentioned in an ``http01`` stanza, cert-manager
will create a Pod, Service and Ingress that exposes an HTTP endpoint that satisfies
the HTTP-01 challenge.

The fields ``ingress`` and ``ingressClass`` in the ``http01`` stanza can be used
to control how cert-manager interacts with Ingress resources:

* If the ``ingress`` field is specified, then an Ingress resource with the same
  name in the same namespace as the Certificate must already exist and it will
  be modified only to add the appropriate rules to solve the challenge.
  This field is useful for the GCLB ingress controller, as well as a number of
  others, that assign a single public IP address for each ingress resource.
  Without manual intervention, creating a new ingress resource would cause any
  challenges to fail.

* If the ``ingressClass`` field is specified, a new ingress resource with a
  randomly generated name will be created in order to solve the challenge.
  This new resource will have an annotation with key ``kubernetes.io/ingress.class``
  and value set to the value of the ``ingressClass`` field.
  This works for the likes of the NGINX ingress controller.

* If neither are specified, new ingress resources will be created with a randomly
  generated name, but they will not have the ingress class annotation set.

* If both are specified, then the ``ingress`` field will take precedence.

Once domain ownership has been verified, any cert-manager affected resources will
be cleaned up or deleted.

.. note::
   It is your responsibilty to point each domain name at the correct IP address
   for your ingress controller.

After creating the above Certificate, we can check whether it has been obtained
successfully using ``kubectl describe``:

.. code-block:: shell

   $ kubectl describe certificate example-com
   Events:
     Type    Reason          Age      From          Message
     ----    ------          ----     ----          -------
     Normal  CreateOrder     57m      cert-manager  Created new ACME order, attempting validation...
     Normal  DomainVerified  55m      cert-manager  Domain "example.com" verified with "http-01" validation
     Normal  DomainVerified  55m      cert-manager  Domain "www.example.com" verified with "http-01" validation
     Normal  IssueCert       55m      cert-manager  Issuing certificate...
     Normal  CertObtained    55m      cert-manager  Obtained certificate from ACME server
     Normal  CertIssued      55m      cert-manager  Certificate issued successfully

You can also check whether issuance was successful with
``kubectl get secret example-com-tls -o yaml``.
You should see a base64 encoded signed TLS key pair.

Once our certificate has been obtained, cert-manager will periodically check its
validity and attempt to renew it if it gets close to expiry.
cert-manager considers certificates to be close to expiry when the 'Not After'
field on the certificate is less than the current time plus 30 days.

.. _ACME: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automated_Certificate_Management_Environment
.. _`staging environment`: https://letsencrypt.org/docs/staging-environment/
.. _`rate limits`: https://letsencrypt.org/docs/rate-limits/
.. _`Subject Alternative Names`: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subject_Alternative_Name