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I think LE is a huge boon to the internet. But I would really love for someone like Amazon, Google, Facebook, or Microsoft to set up a separate provider that im

I think LE is a huge boon to the internet. But I would really love for someone like Amazon, Google, Facebook, or Microsoft to set up a separate provider that implements the same thing. Redundancy is super important here and clearly just one organization can't guarantee 100% uptime.

falcolas 9y ago
Amazon does, though limited to its own services (which is, frankly, to be expected). AWS Certificate Manager
- tyingq 9y ago
  ACM is nice, but it does require the manual step of clicking a link in a verification email.
  - atonse 9y ago
    Yes but it also issues certs for a year, which helps alleviate that email link issue.
    - alberts00 9y ago
      If you are running the AWS ACM certificate at the time when the old one is close to expiration it will automatically renew it without user intervention. http://docs.aws.amazon.com/acm/latest/userguide/configure-domain-for-automatic-validation.html http://docs.aws.amazon.com/acm/latest/userguide/configure-do...
- yeukhon 9y ago
  I think the OP is asking / looking forward big tech like them to host the infrastructure for higher availability. Basically like a mirror. To end users they are just the same server. On the side note, is the LE infrastructure globally distributed or currently all reside in US/West and/or US/East? Is Mozilla currently the one hosting?
- IgorPartola 9y ago
  I am talking about it being wide open, not just for AWS, and implementing the ACME protocol.
- parzivalm 9y ago
  ACM is kind of limiting though. You can only use it with 4 of AWS's services none of which is ec2 directly which limits use cases I would think.
- cestith 9y ago
  And then Route53 doesn't support CAA.
matt4077 9y ago
Redundancy yeah! But does it have to be one of those 4? I'm getting slightly worried and very bored by their dominance in infrastructure.
jacquesm 9y ago
I'd vote for Gandi.net or Github to do it. FB definitely not, MS rather not, Google not if I could avoid it. Amazon maybe.
- yjftsjthsd-h 9y ago
  What's the threat model? I don't trust FB either, but with CA transparency and CAA it seems safe enough.
  - corobo 9y ago
    "We want to make sure our users are protected from malicious links so we proxy them when clicked" Very unlikely, most feasible thing I could think of
- IgorPartola 9y ago
  Google already can mess with your domain quite a bit (how many people use Google's DNS servers?). They also have a registrar and a CA already that your browser trusts. Amazon does the same thing. Don't know about MS/Azure, but if they don't now, I'm sure they will soon. FB is the only one that I don't think has neither, but they are also the ones I think that are least likely to actually maliciously mess with domains and TLS. It's just not in the business model. Besides, this doesn't have to be a thing that's under the direct control of any of these organizations, but rather a separate entity that's just financed by them. Gandi or GitHub would be cool too.
jerf 9y ago
Alternatively, maybe Let's Encrypt ought to Chaos Monkey this up and be down for 4 random hours every month or something on purpose. Or if you want to make very sure you don't turn people away, be down for 4 hours every month for any cert that has been in Let's Encrypt for more than a month or two, so you don't turn away new users. Because if you have a problem with a brief outage, the problem is in the user code, not Let's Encrypt. It doesn't matter how redundant you make Let's Encrypt, the problem could always like too close to the user code to be resolved, e.g., the data center hosting your server loses internet. 100% uptime in the sense of "system A can always reach service B" is impossible, even if service B never "goes down" strictly speaking.
- kogepathic 9y ago
  > Alternatively, maybe Let's Encrypt ought to Chaos Monkey this up and be down for 4 random hours every month or something on purpose. And then gain a reputation for being unreliable? > Or if you want to make very sure you don't turn people away, be down for 4 hours every month for any cert that has been in Let's Encrypt for more than a month or two, so you don't turn away new users. Because if you have a problem with a brief outage, the problem is in the user code, not Let's Encrypt. Most users don't care. If it's not working reliably for them, they'll just move to something that does. Maybe there is an issue in their code that should be addressed, but I seriously doubt they'd care to have that pointed out when they're suddenly offline. Anyone doing proper testing of their software/infrastructure should have a testing environment anyway. I'd take your proposal and modify it to: Let's Encrypt should offer testing servers which are down for well defined periods throughout the day that people can use to test their platform against.
  - jerf 9y ago
    "And then gain a reputation for being unreliable?" If they tell people what they are doing and why, and only do it for established certificates, I'm not sure that would happen. "Let's Encrypt should offer testing servers which are down for well defined periods throughout the day that people can use to test their platform against." Who would use them? Anyone who cares enough to simulate LE failure is presumably already doing it.

falcolas 9y ago

Amazon does, though limited to its own services (which is, frankly, to be expected). AWS Certificate Manager

tyingq 9y ago
ACM is nice, but it does require the manual step of clicking a link in a verification email.
- atonse 9y ago
  Yes but it also issues certs for a year, which helps alleviate that email link issue.
  - alberts00 9y ago
    If you are running the AWS ACM certificate at the time when the old one is close to expiration it will automatically renew it without user intervention. http://docs.aws.amazon.com/acm/latest/userguide/configure-domain-for-automatic-validation.html http://docs.aws.amazon.com/acm/latest/userguide/configure-do...
yeukhon 9y ago
I think the OP is asking / looking forward big tech like them to host the infrastructure for higher availability. Basically like a mirror. To end users they are just the same server. On the side note, is the LE infrastructure globally distributed or currently all reside in US/West and/or US/East? Is Mozilla currently the one hosting?
IgorPartola 9y ago
I am talking about it being wide open, not just for AWS, and implementing the ACME protocol.
parzivalm 9y ago
ACM is kind of limiting though. You can only use it with 4 of AWS's services none of which is ec2 directly which limits use cases I would think.
cestith 9y ago
And then Route53 doesn't support CAA.

matt4077 9y ago

Redundancy yeah! But does it have to be one of those 4? I'm getting slightly worried and very bored by their dominance in infrastructure.

jacquesm 9y ago

I'd vote for Gandi.net or Github to do it. FB definitely not, MS rather not, Google not if I could avoid it. Amazon maybe.

yjftsjthsd-h 9y ago
What's the threat model? I don't trust FB either, but with CA transparency and CAA it seems safe enough.
- corobo 9y ago
  "We want to make sure our users are protected from malicious links so we proxy them when clicked" Very unlikely, most feasible thing I could think of
IgorPartola 9y ago
Google already can mess with your domain quite a bit (how many people use Google's DNS servers?). They also have a registrar and a CA already that your browser trusts. Amazon does the same thing. Don't know about MS/Azure, but if they don't now, I'm sure they will soon. FB is the only one that I don't think has neither, but they are also the ones I think that are least likely to actually maliciously mess with domains and TLS. It's just not in the business model. Besides, this doesn't have to be a thing that's under the direct control of any of these organizations, but rather a separate entity that's just financed by them. Gandi or GitHub would be cool too.

jerf 9y ago

Alternatively, maybe Let's Encrypt ought to Chaos Monkey this up and be down for 4 random hours every month or something on purpose. Or if you want to make very sure you don't turn people away, be down for 4 hours every month for any cert that has been in Let's Encrypt for more than a month or two, so you don't turn away new users. Because if you have a problem with a brief outage, the problem is in the user code, not Let's Encrypt. It doesn't matter how redundant you make Let's Encrypt, the problem could always like too close to the user code to be resolved, e.g., the data center hosting your server loses internet. 100% uptime in the sense of "system A can always reach service B" is impossible, even if service B never "goes down" strictly speaking.

kogepathic 9y ago
> Alternatively, maybe Let's Encrypt ought to Chaos Monkey this up and be down for 4 random hours every month or something on purpose. And then gain a reputation for being unreliable? > Or if you want to make very sure you don't turn people away, be down for 4 hours every month for any cert that has been in Let's Encrypt for more than a month or two, so you don't turn away new users. Because if you have a problem with a brief outage, the problem is in the user code, not Let's Encrypt. Most users don't care. If it's not working reliably for them, they'll just move to something that does. Maybe there is an issue in their code that should be addressed, but I seriously doubt they'd care to have that pointed out when they're suddenly offline. Anyone doing proper testing of their software/infrastructure should have a testing environment anyway. I'd take your proposal and modify it to: Let's Encrypt should offer testing servers which are down for well defined periods throughout the day that people can use to test their platform against.
- jerf 9y ago
  "And then gain a reputation for being unreliable?" If they tell people what they are doing and why, and only do it for established certificates, I'm not sure that would happen. "Let's Encrypt should offer testing servers which are down for well defined periods throughout the day that people can use to test their platform against." Who would use them? Anyone who cares enough to simulate LE failure is presumably already doing it.