Wildcard certificates, building from scratch and what Caddy is all about

[matt (Matt Holt)]

Thanks for the feedback.

A couple quick answers:

@foogle

I wondered why wildcards aren’t built in for common providers.

Because we’re trying to avoid converging the Internet onto a centralized ecosystem.

@foogle

Hey, when it comes to wildcards, Caddy requires me to compile from scratch

That’s definitely not the case.

I’m sorry you had a frustrating experience. But… are you sure you read our docs though? And even looked at our website? Because I think your frustrations would have been quickly appeased.

I’ll show you how to use wildcard certificates with Caddy easily, up and running in 5 minutes (modulo any delays outside of Caddy such as setting up a system service or getting credentials from your DNS provider). Here’s all you have to do:

1. Go to Caddy’s download page.
2. Choose your OS, arch, and the plugin corresponding to your DNS provider. (You can type its name to filter quickly.)
3. Click Download. You now have a Caddy binary that supports the DNS challenge without you “compiling from scratch.” Booyah.
4. Then make a Caddyfile that resembles something as simple as this:

{
    acme_dns cloudflare abcdef1234topsecret
}

*.example.com {
    respond "This is actually easy!"
}

5. Run Caddy, et voilà! You have a wildcard certificate.

You can find these instructions in our #1 most popular wiki article:

How to use DNS provider modules in Caddy 2

Caddy 2 uses a new and improved DNS provider interface for solving the ACME DNS challenge. All you have to do is plug the service provider(s) you need into your build, then add the DNS challenge to your configuration! Getting a DNS provider plugin How you choose to get a custom Caddy build is up to you; we’ll describe two common methods here. Method 1: Go to the Caddy download page. Find your DNS provider in the list of modules (dns.providers.*) and select it. Download your custom Caddy …

Our documentation also explains the DNS challenge.

@foogle

that’s hard and less automatic and not zero config

PS. Caddy never claims to be “zero config” except for the most basic quick-n-dirty deployments; if you need anything custom – especially anything dealing with sensitive credentials – of course you will have config for any program/system. It can’t read your mind, after all.