How to set up free SSL certificates on GoDaddy hosting?

With this guide you will be able to set up free auto-renewing SSL (Let’s Encrypt) certificates on GoDaddy hosting.

1. Setting up SSH

a. A complete guide to configuring SSH

b. if point (a) is not available:

• Enable SSH for your Linux Hosting account
• Set up your SSH keys
• Connect to your server with SSH (Secure Shell)

2. Connecting to hosting via SSH

Open your terminal (console) and run the command:

ssh username@primary.host

• username — Find your username for Linux Hosting
• primary.host — Find your primary host on GoDaddy hosting

Upon successful execution of the command, you will get remote access to the hosting. You will notice this by the changed device name in your terminal. All subsequent commands will be executed on the hosting itself.

3. Install acme.sh (Let's Encrypt client)

Just for reference: acme.sh source code and docs

To install acme.sh, you need to run one command:

curl https://get.acme.sh | sh

And re-login to ssh:

exit

Go to step 2. Then step 4.

4. Install post-renew hook

You will need a script to automatically apply new SSL certificates to the GoDaddy server.

Download post-renew-hook.php script to your computer.

Open GoDaddy file manager in your browser

Show hidden files in file manager

Copy post-renew-hook.php script file to the folder with acme.sh: /home/<username>/.acme.sh/

5. Getting GoDaddy API Keys

Also, you need keys to work acme.sh with the GoDaddy server.

As stated in the acme.sh documentation: Use GoDaddy.com domain API to automatically issue cert

You need to login to your GoDaddy account to get your API Key and Secret.

https://developer.godaddy.com/keys/

Create a Production key, instead of a Test key.

Execute the command in ssh substituting the your values:

export GD_Key="yourKey"
export GD_Secret="yourSecret"

6. Issuing SSL certificates

Now you can start issuing certificates. Specify your domain instead example.com. If you have subdomains, then you need to specify additionally *.example.com so that the certificate is applied to them as well.

acme.sh --issue --dns dns_gd -d example.com -d *.example.com --renew-hook "php ~/.acme.sh/post-renew-hook.php example.com"

Remember to replace the last example.com in --renew-hook to your domain.

You can repeat this step for each domain on your hosting.

Congratulations

Now you have free SSL certificates configured on your hosting! Your sites are available via HTTPS protocol. If you did everything according to the instructions, then the certificates will be updated automatically, without your participation. Isn't that cool?