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First, congrats, this is great news! There's a lot of use cases out there that require a wildcard cert or work far better with them. > It is our intent to tran

First, congrats, this is great news! There's a lot of use cases out there that require a wildcard cert or work far better with them. > It is our intent to transition all clients and subscribers to ACMEv2, though we have not set an end-of-life date for our ACMEv1 API yet. Please don't do this. It will break millions of sites needlessly. Most installations of lets encrypt plugins aren't going to auto update to v2. A lot of us are also using custom v1 code for various reasons that may not be easy to change. The preferable end-of-life date for ACMEv1 (sparing any existential security issues) should be never. Otherwise you will be executing a Geocities-sized web meltdown every time you phase out a version of the API.

deleted 9y ago
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wereHamster 9y ago
Depends only on how much different v2 is from v1.
mholt 9y ago
> The preferable end-of-life date for ACMEv1 should be never. As would be the preferable end-of-life date for SSLv3 and HTTP.
- eric_b 9y ago
  The SSL zealotry drives me nuts. The infosec community screams constantly about "HTTPS everywhere", but they either don't know or don't care about all the effort and pain they're creating for developers who just want their software to work. How many perfectly good sites will be marked ominously as "insecure" by Chrome in the next few months? Sites that were working just fine until someone at Big G decided they weren't. (Related, a big thanks to Google for un-trusting that whole big Symantec security chain. Yeah, I realize they weren't competent, but I also realize that it had no practical effect on my site's security, as I don't have nation states or motivated hackers in my threat model.) Security measures should be weighed like everything else - as cost/benefit. In many cases the cost of the security is not worth it. Edit: I'd just like to point out the irony in some of the replies to this comment. I'm complaining about zealotry, and the vast majority of nasty replies I've received to this comment are using language that only zealots and ideologues would use. My god, you'd think I'm killing puppies based on some of these responses. Nope, just advocating for using HTTPS where it makes sense, and not having it forced down your throat.
  - rospaya 9y ago
    My favorite part of the internet were always the small hobyist websites. The guy that has an encyclopedic database about Grateful Dead trivia, the other guy that collects pictures of plants. Those people are independent, they're not technical and their 90s looking websites are going to go under because of blanket security policies that don't concern them.
    - greglindahl 9y ago
      You do realize you're making this complaint on a discussion about a tool that makes HTTPS easier for said small hobbyist websites? I've updated all of my hobby sites using Let's Encrypt, and I really appreciate how it was easy for me while also being good for my users.
      - rospaya 9y ago
        My comment isn't against Let's Encrypt. It's against blacklisting text only sites that don't need HTTPS.
        jenscow 9y ago
        Nobody is blacklisting them. The visitors are just being informed of the risks. The warning used to be the absence of a pad-lock, but who notices that?
        niij 9y ago
        If a "text-only" website is on HTTP it can be MITM'ed and used to serve up malicious JS.
    - __jal 9y ago
      If not SSL, then they'd go away at the point some other technical change dropped. Or do you suggest "we" continue using broken protocols forever in order to preserve them? Do you still support telnet to accommodate people who can't handle `ssh-keygen`? In any case, (a small subset of) the random enthusiast sites and such are close to the only reason I use a browser recreationally anymore. I absolutely agree with you. The answer isn't to stop fixing things. The answer is to make it easier and cheaper to be secure. Kinda like what LE is doing, no?
Siecje 9y ago
When you run the Let's Encrypt official client (certbot), it updates itself.
- schoen 9y ago
  Only if you use certbot-auto, not if you use an OS package. (I'm on the Certbot team.) Also, some people dislike this feature quite a bit, and there are about 100 different clients. https://letsencrypt.org/docs/client-options/ https://letsencrypt.org/docs/client-options/
  - classichasclass 9y ago
    And some people take clients like acme.sh and modify them. I do that myself. There's enough entrenched inertia to HTTPS without giving people more ammunition regarding the actual amount of work involved. Unless there's a security reason to eliminate the v1 endpoint, please don't.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
dspillett 9y ago
If the EoL is far enough after the release of V2 then I think it is preferable that people start getting security warnings for sites that stop working: it is an indication that they are no longer maintained so potentially not receiving security updates for other matters. Obviously a decent length of grace period would be the correct way of deprecating the older version, to give people time to update their infrastructure accordingly. I would suggest at least a full year (giving at least four renewal cycles to test changes in a QA environment before being forced to update production), probably more. Perhaps, if possible, a year for new certificates and two years for renewals?
jaas 9y ago
The reason we haven't announced an EOL for ACMEv1 is that we won't announce one until we are confident we won't cause the kind of meltdown you describe.
- kyledrake 9y ago
  That's good to know, thank you for the info.
- gumby 9y ago
  You might simplify things for yourself to some extent by requiring ACMEv2 for wildcard requests, which will reduce the number of people deploying the old client and spur many to upgrade. And your old client still works on the systems it's deployed on (by definition) so you could just stop development on that.
  - jaas 9y ago
    Wildcards are only available via ACMEv2. The post linked to here says that.
    - gumby 9y ago
      d'oh, I overlooked that (and I still had the post open in another window!). Thanks. It's bad enough that some people comment without reading -- I apparently commented without paying attention.
- irq-1 9y ago
  You could block new domains (new to Lets Encrypt) from using v1.
  - nothrabannosir 9y ago
    This will break many tools which currently rely on LE. E.g. mailinabox, which uses LE to set itself up.
belorn 9y ago
Since the certificate need to be updated every three months they have access to exact number of how many people use ACMEv1. They also have as naturally part of the process the domain names of those users. This should allow them to very slowly watch as the number of v1 users drops until there is so few that they can try contact any remaining users before deciding to set an end-of-life to that version.
- cm2187 9y ago
  You are supposed to provide a valid email address when you register for a let's encrypt certificate. In theory they should be able to contact all v1 client users.
  - pfg 9y ago
    The email address is optional, though most clients tend to hide that fact (or make it mandatory).
rkistner 9y ago
They already disabled TLS-SNI-01 for new certificates because of security issues [1]. This was a major breaking change, without any advance notice, but nothing melted down. I'm sure the other validation endpoints are used a lot more, but the effect shouldn't be any different, especially if give a deprecation notice of a year or two. [1]: https://community.letsencrypt.org/t/important-what-you-need-to-know-about-tls-sni-validation-issues/50811 https://community.letsencrypt.org/t/important-what-you-need-...
- slrz 9y ago
  While there was no world-destroying core meltdown, it was still super-annoying to deal with. Lots of code needed to be touched. I'd really like a comeback of a fixed TLS-SNI challenge as running a port 80 HTTP server just for LE sucks somewhat. DNS challenges exist and are useful but have more extensive infrastructure requirements. Nothing beats the ease of use of "just put the box up and it'll retrieve its cert as needed".

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

wereHamster 9y ago

Depends only on how much different v2 is from v1.

mholt 9y ago

> The preferable end-of-life date for ACMEv1 should be never. As would be the preferable end-of-life date for SSLv3 and HTTP.

eric_b 9y ago
The SSL zealotry drives me nuts. The infosec community screams constantly about "HTTPS everywhere", but they either don't know or don't care about all the effort and pain they're creating for developers who just want their software to work. How many perfectly good sites will be marked ominously as "insecure" by Chrome in the next few months? Sites that were working just fine until someone at Big G decided they weren't. (Related, a big thanks to Google for un-trusting that whole big Symantec security chain. Yeah, I realize they weren't competent, but I also realize that it had no practical effect on my site's security, as I don't have nation states or motivated hackers in my threat model.) Security measures should be weighed like everything else - as cost/benefit. In many cases the cost of the security is not worth it. Edit: I'd just like to point out the irony in some of the replies to this comment. I'm complaining about zealotry, and the vast majority of nasty replies I've received to this comment are using language that only zealots and ideologues would use. My god, you'd think I'm killing puppies based on some of these responses. Nope, just advocating for using HTTPS where it makes sense, and not having it forced down your throat.
- rospaya 9y ago
  My favorite part of the internet were always the small hobyist websites. The guy that has an encyclopedic database about Grateful Dead trivia, the other guy that collects pictures of plants. Those people are independent, they're not technical and their 90s looking websites are going to go under because of blanket security policies that don't concern them.
  - greglindahl 9y ago
    You do realize you're making this complaint on a discussion about a tool that makes HTTPS easier for said small hobbyist websites? I've updated all of my hobby sites using Let's Encrypt, and I really appreciate how it was easy for me while also being good for my users.
    - rospaya 9y ago
      My comment isn't against Let's Encrypt. It's against blacklisting text only sites that don't need HTTPS.
      - jenscow 9y ago
        Nobody is blacklisting them. The visitors are just being informed of the risks. The warning used to be the absence of a pad-lock, but who notices that?
      - niij 9y ago
        If a "text-only" website is on HTTP it can be MITM'ed and used to serve up malicious JS.
  - __jal 9y ago
    If not SSL, then they'd go away at the point some other technical change dropped. Or do you suggest "we" continue using broken protocols forever in order to preserve them? Do you still support telnet to accommodate people who can't handle `ssh-keygen`? In any case, (a small subset of) the random enthusiast sites and such are close to the only reason I use a browser recreationally anymore. I absolutely agree with you. The answer isn't to stop fixing things. The answer is to make it easier and cheaper to be secure. Kinda like what LE is doing, no?

Siecje 9y ago

When you run the Let's Encrypt official client (certbot), it updates itself.

schoen 9y ago
Only if you use certbot-auto, not if you use an OS package. (I'm on the Certbot team.) Also, some people dislike this feature quite a bit, and there are about 100 different clients. https://letsencrypt.org/docs/client-options/ https://letsencrypt.org/docs/client-options/
- classichasclass 9y ago
  And some people take clients like acme.sh and modify them. I do that myself. There's enough entrenched inertia to HTTPS without giving people more ammunition regarding the actual amount of work involved. Unless there's a security reason to eliminate the v1 endpoint, please don't.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]

dspillett 9y ago

If the EoL is far enough after the release of V2 then I think it is preferable that people start getting security warnings for sites that stop working: it is an indication that they are no longer maintained so potentially not receiving security updates for other matters. Obviously a decent length of grace period would be the correct way of deprecating the older version, to give people time to update their infrastructure accordingly. I would suggest at least a full year (giving at least four renewal cycles to test changes in a QA environment before being forced to update production), probably more. Perhaps, if possible, a year for new certificates and two years for renewals?

jaas 9y ago

The reason we haven't announced an EOL for ACMEv1 is that we won't announce one until we are confident we won't cause the kind of meltdown you describe.

kyledrake 9y ago
That's good to know, thank you for the info.
gumby 9y ago
You might simplify things for yourself to some extent by requiring ACMEv2 for wildcard requests, which will reduce the number of people deploying the old client and spur many to upgrade. And your old client still works on the systems it's deployed on (by definition) so you could just stop development on that.
- jaas 9y ago
  Wildcards are only available via ACMEv2. The post linked to here says that.
  - gumby 9y ago
    d'oh, I overlooked that (and I still had the post open in another window!). Thanks. It's bad enough that some people comment without reading -- I apparently commented without paying attention.
irq-1 9y ago
You could block new domains (new to Lets Encrypt) from using v1.
- nothrabannosir 9y ago
  This will break many tools which currently rely on LE. E.g. mailinabox, which uses LE to set itself up.

belorn 9y ago

Since the certificate need to be updated every three months they have access to exact number of how many people use ACMEv1. They also have as naturally part of the process the domain names of those users. This should allow them to very slowly watch as the number of v1 users drops until there is so few that they can try contact any remaining users before deciding to set an end-of-life to that version.

cm2187 9y ago
You are supposed to provide a valid email address when you register for a let's encrypt certificate. In theory they should be able to contact all v1 client users.
- pfg 9y ago
  The email address is optional, though most clients tend to hide that fact (or make it mandatory).

rkistner 9y ago

They already disabled TLS-SNI-01 for new certificates because of security issues [1]. This was a major breaking change, without any advance notice, but nothing melted down. I'm sure the other validation endpoints are used a lot more, but the effect shouldn't be any different, especially if give a deprecation notice of a year or two. [1]: https://community.letsencrypt.org/t/important-what-you-need-to-know-about-tls-sni-validation-issues/50811 https://community.letsencrypt.org/t/important-what-you-need-...

slrz 9y ago
While there was no world-destroying core meltdown, it was still super-annoying to deal with. Lots of code needed to be touched. I'd really like a comeback of a fixed TLS-SNI challenge as running a port 80 HTTP server just for LE sucks somewhat. DNS challenges exist and are useful but have more extensive infrastructure requirements. Nothing beats the ease of use of "just put the box up and it'll retrieve its cert as needed".