In an effort to set up SSL validation for this domain, I decided to use the Hash Validation technique. Needless to say, it’s never as straight-forwards as you want. Apache doesn’t like to serve the .well-known directory as it gives a “permission denied” error. A simple and easy fix is to alias it in the vHosts file.
just add the following (and of course modify it accordingly) to your vhosts config and of course issue a restart of Apache.
Alias /.well-known/pki-validation/ /var/www/my.web.root/.well-known/pki-validation/ <Directory /var/www/my.web.root/.well-known/pki-validation/> AllowOverride None Require all granted Satisfy Any </Directory>
This will of course solve the issue as it will point the alias of the requested URI to a hard-coded path on the server. Remember to delete the alias once you’re done validating.
Just a bit of *nix magic for those of you who are perpetually annoyed.
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