Let’s Encrypt is a Certificate Authority (CA) that provides free certificates for Transport Layer Security (TLS) encryption, thereby enabling encrypted HTTPS on web servers. It simplifies the process of creation, validation, signing, installation, and renewal of certificates by providing a software client that automates most of the steps—Certbot.

In this tutorial, you will use Certbot to set up a TLS/SSL certificate from Let’s Encrypt on a CentOS 7 server running Apache as a web server. Additionally, you will automate the certificate renewal process using a cron job, which you can learn more about by reading How To Use Cron To Automate Tasks On a VPS.