# Disable HTTPS or configure get Let's Encrypt DNS challenge

**URL:** https://meta.discourse.org/t/disable-https-or-configure-get-lets-encrypt-dns-challenge/308746
**Category:** Self-hosting
**Created:** [May 20, 2024, 7:58pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/disable-https-or-configure-get-lets-encrypt-dns-challenge/308746 "2024-05-20T19:58:58Z")
**Posts on this page:** 2
**Page:** 1

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### Author: ![Marek\_Wojtaszek](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/meta/user_avatar/meta.discourse.org/marek_wojtaszek/32/380033_2.png) [@Marek\_Wojtaszek](https://meta.discourse.org/u/Marek_Wojtaszek)
#### Post date: [May 20, 2024, 7:58pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/disable-https-or-configure-get-lets-encrypt-dns-challenge/308746/1 "2024-05-20T19:58:58Z")

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This is my third post on that, I am so sorry to flood you with that, but I here wanted make the thread as simple as possible.

I have horrible issues with getting the HTTP based Let’s Encrypt certificates since my server is not accessible to the external world over HTTP port, and I am really tired of that. Especially that my Discourse server is hidden behind the Cloudflare tunnel, so **I do not need SSL at all** as the certs are being served by Cloudflare tunnel for me.

So my question is simple:

- how can I disable port 443 (HTTPS) at all for Discourse to get rid of the LE cert creation nightmare  
or
- how can I configure the SSL cert creation with the DNS challenge, where I could provide my email address and the Cloudflare global API key

Thanks in advance for you help!

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<div class="post-metadata">

### Author: ![itsbhanusharma](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/meta/user_avatar/meta.discourse.org/itsbhanusharma/32/180717_2.png) [@itsbhanusharma](https://meta.discourse.org/u/itsbhanusharma)
#### Post date: [May 21, 2024, 7:10am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/disable-https-or-configure-get-lets-encrypt-dns-challenge/308746/2 "2024-05-21T07:10:24Z")

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> [@Marek\_Wojtaszek](#):
>
> how can I disable port 443 (HTTPS) at all for Discourse to get rid of the LE cert creation nightmare

You can disable SSL by commenting the two templates in your YML file.

There should be a section like this in your YML File

> <https://github.com/discourse/discourse_docker/blob/7bcf0a4399ac952f374299c1755e4eda9d58f621/samples/standalone.yml#L17C1-L19C50>

Make sure it looks exactly as shown above and then it won’t try to issue an SSL certificate or expose Port 443.

> [@Marek\_Wojtaszek](#):
>
> how can I configure the SSL cert creation with the DNS challenge, where I could provide my email address and the Cloudflare global API key

You can do this by setting a reverse proxy and configuring that to use DNS challenge. However, Since you already have exposed discourse via cloudflare tunnel, You probably don’t need this.

Be sure to check the cloudflare tunnel documentation for discourse here for additional hints:

> [@Install Discourse on a residential internet with Cloudflare Tunnel](https://meta.discourse.org/t/install-discourse-on-a-residential-internet-with-cloudflare-tunnel/211297):
>
> Since [Discourse now has support for running on a Raspberry Pi](https://blog.discourse.org/2021/12/2021-12-07-discourse-on-a-raspberry-pi/), running a small instance in your home lab will become a common use case. However, many residential ISPs block incoming traffic to the ports 80/443 that Discourse need. For our demo site at [https://discourse-on-a-pi.falco.dev/](https://discourse-on-a-pi.falco.dev/) we used [Cloudflare Tunnel](https://blog.cloudflare.com/tunnel-for-everyone/) to work around this, and you can do it too! Setup your tunnel First, follow the following guide: The only change you need is changing the URL from url: http://localhost:8000 to url…