This project is not maintained anymore. It is recommended to switch to acme.sh instead: https://github.com/haproxy/wiki/wiki/Letsencrypt-integration-with-HAProxy-and-acme.sh

Beware, the fixes to support for ACME v2 protocol were recently merged, there might be some sharp edges but it should work.

This is a client implementation for ACME (Automatic Certificate Management Environment) protocol, currently draft IETF standard (https://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-ietf-acme-acme-12)

The protocol will be supported by Let's Encrypt project from March 2018. and it is expected that other Certificate Authorities will support this ACME version in the future.

The main idea of this ACME client is to implement as much functionality inside HAProxy. In addition to supporting single instance HAProxy installations, we also aim to support multi-instance deployments (i.e. you have a cluster of load balancers on which you want to use ACME issued certs).

By using the internal HTTP interface (and http client such as curl), you will be able to execute the following:

• Upload your own account and domain keys (only RSA keys for now)
• Automatically register your account on ACME servers (linked to your account key)
• Request and receive certificates for your domains

The only thing you need to do on your own is to save the received certificate bundles and reload HAProxy.

• A modern HAProxy version (v1.8) with Lua support (check with haproxy -vv | grep USE_LUA=1)
• haproxy-lua-http - Lua HTTP server/client for HAProxy Lua host
• json.lua - Lua JSON library
• luaossl - OpenSSL bindings for Lua

Install the required Lua libraries to proper LUA_PATH location, and configure haproxy as follows:

global
 log /dev/log local0 debug
 nbproc 1
 daemon
 lua-load config.lua
 lua-load acme.lua
defaults
 log global
 mode http
 option httplog
 timeout connect 5s
 timeout client 10s
 timeout server 10s
listen http
 bind *:80
 http-request use-service lua.acme if { path_beg /.well-known/acme-challenge/ }
listen acme
 bind 127.0.0.1:9011
 http-request use-service lua.acme
listen acme-ca
 bind 127.0.0.1:9012
 server ca acme-v02.api.letsencrypt.org:443 ssl verify required ca-file letsencrypt-x3-ca-chain.pem
 http-request set-header Host acme-v02.api.letsencrypt.org

letsencrypt-x3-ca-chain.pem is the concatenation of the active root certificate and intermediate certificate in one pem file, available here : https://letsencrypt.org/certificates/

Configuration is kept in a separate Lua file, where you must explicitly set termsOfServiceAgreed option to true in order to be able to acquire certs. Before doing that, please read latest Let's Encrypt terms of service and subscriber agreement available at https://letsencrypt.org/repository/

config = {
 registration = {
 -- You can read TOS here: https://letsencrypt.org/repository/
 termsOfServiceAgreed = false,
 contact = {"mailto:postmaster@example.net"}
 },
 -- ACME certificate authority configuration
 ca = {
 -- HAProxy backend/server which proxies requests to ACME server
 proxy_uri = "http://127.0.0.1:9012",
 -- ACME server URI (also returned by ACME directory listings)
 -- Use this server name in HAProxy config
 uri = "https://acme-v02.api.letsencrypt.org",
 }
}

Although Lua module is able to create account key or domain automatically, for performance and security reasons we require that you create your keys separately.

Currently, we only support RSA keys. For account key, key size should be 4096bits, and for domain key 2048bits (minimal key sizes are also enforced by Let's Encrypt).

You can use the following commands to create keys. Note that you need a modern openssl version, we don't use openssl genrsa but openssl genpkey, as we're going to use the same command to create ECDSA keys in the future.

openssl genpkey -algorithm RSA -pkeyopt rsa_keygen_bits:4096 -out account.key
openssl genpkey -algorithm RSA -pkeyopt rsa_keygen_bits:2048 -out example.net.key

After you have provisioned your keys, you can run certificate order via HTTP. For example by using curl to POST data in multipart/form-data format:

curl -XPOST http://127.0.0.1:9011/acme/order -F 'account_key=@account.key' \
 -F 'domain=example.net' -F 'domain_key=@example.net.key' \
 -F 'aliases=www.example.net,example.com,www.example.com' \
 -o example.net.pem

Aliases are optional, and we use curl @ syntax to post files. The output is full certificate chain (with key appended), suitable for direct consumption by HAProxy.