Why is Let's Encrypt not Available?

Sometimes when you go to enable Let's Encrypt on one of your websites you may notice that the option is disabled, like in the image below.

As the error suggests, this is because our platform is detecting that the site is not live on this server. But you already changed the DNS to make it live, right?

A DNS change tends to take the amount of time set as the TTL (time to live) and this can be as much as 24 hours. Even if the DNS change has propagated to some places, it hasn't reached everywhere as the Nimbus platform is not seeing it yet.

So what are my options?

The first option is to wait for the DNS to propagate, once it has fully propagated, the Let's Encrypt option in the platform will automatically become available. If that is too long without an SSL then we can provide a paid for RapidSSL very quickly, this can be done before the DNS has propagated or even before you change the DNS at all. Our SSL options can be found here - https://www.nimbushosting.co.uk/ssl-certificates/

One final way to speed up getting a free SSL is to have the domain on our name servers. Let's Encrypt can verify a domain for one of its free SSLs in two ways, the first is via placing a file on to your site (this requires the DNS to be fully propagated) and the second is via a TXT record in the domain's DNS. Therefore any domain using Nimbus name servers can be managed by our platform and we can do the DNS TXT verification automatically, if you are using the Nimbus name servers for the domain then the Let's Encrypt option will always be available!

So the next time you have a site on the Nimbus Hosting platform that is going live in the future, why not switch your name servers to ours*! Please see the guide below for using the Nimbus name servers for your domain.

Managing DNS within the Hosting Platform

*A name server change takes 24 hours to propagate so please make sure that you do this well in advance of your planned go live date.