kuba

simp_le

Python2015–2016

kuba / simp_le

simp_le

Simple Let's Encrypt Client

Security & Privacy

Explore on GitHub Read Hacker News discussions

8Distinct people

10Mentions

0Explicit recommenders

877GitHub stars

REPOSITORY AT A GLANCE

What to know before exploring

What it is

Simple Let's Encrypt Client

GitHub

Where it is used

No documented product use has been verified yet.

What people are saying

No recommendation phrase was found in the indexed comments.

No classified warning is attached to this page. Read the discussions before treating silence as approval.

Also in these discussions

No other repository is repeatedly linked in the same discussions.

This week on Hacker News

Nov 7–Nov 14 UTC · Direct repository links and separately labeled related project stories. Indexed through 11/14/2026, 3:56:07 PM UTC.

No direct repository links were found in the indexed HN discussions over the past seven days. Older discussions are available below.

Mentions over time

HN mentions by week10 dated mentions

Observed mentions: 2015-12-03 19:40:30 UTC to 2016-05-16 15:22:58 UTC. Weeks start Monday, UTC.

Counts come from the repository’s dated source evidence. Index cutoff: 2026-11-02 08:16:59 UTC.

View mention counts and date ranges

UTC ranges include their start and exclude their end. Select a period to filter the source evidence.
Period	Start (UTC)	End (exclusive, UTC)	Mentions	Comments
Nov 30	2015-11-30 00:00:00 UTC	2015-12-07 00:00:00 UTC	5	5
Dec 7	2015-12-07 00:00:00 UTC	2015-12-14 00:00:00 UTC	0	0
Dec 14	2015-12-14 00:00:00 UTC	2015-12-21 00:00:00 UTC	0	0
Dec 21	2015-12-21 00:00:00 UTC	2015-12-28 00:00:00 UTC	1	1
Dec 28	2015-12-28 00:00:00 UTC	2016-01-04 00:00:00 UTC	0	0
Jan 4	2016-01-04 00:00:00 UTC	2016-01-11 00:00:00 UTC	0	0
Jan 11	2016-01-11 00:00:00 UTC	2016-01-18 00:00:00 UTC	0	0
Jan 18	2016-01-18 00:00:00 UTC	2016-01-25 00:00:00 UTC	0	0
Jan 25	2016-01-25 00:00:00 UTC	2016-02-01 00:00:00 UTC	1	1
Feb 1	2016-02-01 00:00:00 UTC	2016-02-08 00:00:00 UTC	0	0
Feb 8	2016-02-08 00:00:00 UTC	2016-02-15 00:00:00 UTC	0	0
Feb 15	2016-02-15 00:00:00 UTC	2016-02-22 00:00:00 UTC	2	2
Feb 22	2016-02-22 00:00:00 UTC	2016-02-29 00:00:00 UTC	0	0
Feb 29	2016-02-29 00:00:00 UTC	2016-03-07 00:00:00 UTC	0	0
Mar 7	2016-03-07 00:00:00 UTC	2016-03-14 00:00:00 UTC	0	0
Mar 14	2016-03-14 00:00:00 UTC	2016-03-21 00:00:00 UTC	0	0
Mar 21	2016-03-21 00:00:00 UTC	2016-03-28 00:00:00 UTC	0	0
Mar 28	2016-03-28 00:00:00 UTC	2016-04-04 00:00:00 UTC	0	0
Apr 4	2016-04-04 00:00:00 UTC	2016-04-11 00:00:00 UTC	0	0
Apr 11	2016-04-11 00:00:00 UTC	2016-04-18 00:00:00 UTC	0	0
Apr 18	2016-04-18 00:00:00 UTC	2016-04-25 00:00:00 UTC	0	0
Apr 25	2016-04-25 00:00:00 UTC	2016-05-02 00:00:00 UTC	0	0
May 2	2016-05-02 00:00:00 UTC	2016-05-09 00:00:00 UTC	0	0
May 9	2016-05-09 00:00:00 UTC	2016-05-16 00:00:00 UTC	0	0
May 16	2016-05-16 00:00:00 UTC	2016-05-23 00:00:00 UTC	1	1

What Hacker News says

10 sources

wensheng·May 16, 2016

Simp_le does the same thing. I use simp_le with Haproxy on one server and nginx sni on another. Works very well. https://github.com/kuba/simp_le

In CertBot: Automatically enable HTTPS on your website with Let's Encrypt certs

blfr·Feb 16, 2016

I'm quite happy with simp_le[1] which doesn't require root. Renewals can happen automatically. All you need to do is monitor your certificates as you would anyway. [1] https://github.com/kuba/simp_le

In Why I stopped using StartSSL (Hint: it involves a Chinese company)

Tepix·Feb 16, 2016

The official Let's Encrypt client is bloated and wants to fiddle with your HTTP server configuration. Bad idea. Use something small like https://github.com/kuba/simp_le or https://github.com/diafygi/acme-tiny

In Why I stopped using StartSSL (Hint: it involves a Chinese company)

clinta·Jan 29, 2016

The ACME protocol is open and as a result there are several alternative clients which do not require root. Here's a few: https://github.com/diafygi/letsencrypt-nosudo https://github.com/kuba/simp_le https://github.com/lukas2511/letsencrypt.sh Or you can go a more manual approach via https://gethttpsforfree.com/ but you will need to manually renew your certificate every 90 days.

In Google Will Soon Shame All Websites That Are Unencrypted

blfr·Dec 21, 2015

Everyone's recommending their favourite alternative. Mine is simp_le[1], a very simple ACME python client. It only supports the http challenge. You can run it without root (I have a dedicated user generally), without stopping your webserver. You only need to allow write access to domain/.well-known/acme-challenge. Write a simple wrapper script and run it from cron. You get precisely the certificates needed for Apache or nginx. All that's left is to symlink them to the right spot. Let's Encrypt follows all redirects and ignores expired certificates so if you have multiple domains redirecting to one, you can get a certificate for all of them in one go even if your certificate expired. You can create a SAN certificate or multiple certificates in whatever constellation you like. SSL bliss. [1] https://github.com/kuba/simp_le

In Taking Let's Encrypt for a Spin

kbaker·Dec 5, 2015

You may also want to look at https://github.com/kuba/simp_le . Written by the same developer as the official client. Really easy to set up and run from a cron job. Outputs the full chain as well. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10672006

In Letsencrypt implemented as a shell script

wiml·Dec 4, 2015

Also along these lines is https://github.com/kuba/simp_le , which is quite a lot larger than acme-tiny, but still much closer to something I'd want to stick in a crontab.

In Show HN: Acme-tiny, a tiny 200-line Let's Encrypt client

binwiederhier·Dec 4, 2015

In case anyone is looking for an actual cronjob example. This works wonderfully: #!/bin/bash cd /srv/cert/domain.xyz simp_le -d domain.xyz:/srv/www/domain.xyz/html \ -f key.pem -f cert.pem -f fullchain.pem \ && service apache2 reload And in the crontab: 43 1 * * * /srv/bin/cert-renew || true EDIT: This is using the simp_le client (https://github.com/kuba/simp_le), not the official client. But this one is wayy easier to use. EDIT 2: Guide here: https://blog.philippheckel.com/2015/12/04/lets-encrypt-5-min...

In Entering Public Beta

kubaw·Dec 3, 2015

The primary difference is in the underlying philosophy. I encourage everyone to read the manifest from the main project site [0]. Most of the points are counteracting bad design decisions (IMO) made in the official client. In general, official client tries to do too many things at once. In the result, the code base is huge -- too big to be easily audited; it's also proven that it's likely to have a lot more bugs. On a similar note, letsencrypt-auto, the default installation method, pulls in Apache plugin with all of its dependencies. And so on, and so forth... At the same time standard modes of operation are well hidden and/or difficult to configure. For instance, running the official client without root is technically possible, but let me know how much time it took you to figure this out ;). Likewise, scripting is pretty much impossible,

Read the rest

because the CLI tends to ask interactive questions... "webroot" plugin is probably the only plugin that could be made into non-interactive mode, and again you have to be knowledgeable enough to figure out all necessary flags. simp_le tries to takes the best from the official client ("webroot" plugin -- not stealing, I authored that plugin myself) and adds some missing features that IMO should be the standard. E.g. you can just just put `simp_le --some --flags && this_command_will_be_run_only_if_cert_was_renewed_eg_restart_nginx` into your crontab -- this mode of operation is simply not possible with the official client. NB You can also turn simp_le into a standalone binary (~8MB) using built-in PyInstaller setup [1] and distribute to your machines without having to install any dependencies (even Python) :) I hope that answers your question. You can also catch me on #letsencrypt, or better yet #simp_le (both at Freenode). [0] https://github.com/kuba/simp_le#manifest [1] https://github.com/kuba/simp_le/tree/master/pyi

In Entering Public Beta

kubaw·Dec 3, 2015

You may also want to try alternative client from https://github.com/kuba/simp_le. It can be easily dropped into crontab and renew certificates when necessary. Disclaimer: I'm the author of simp_le and developer of the official client :)

In Entering Public Beta