Potential issues accessing the tracker, IRC network or site via SSL
Public Service Announcement
Accessing the tracker, IRC network or site via SSL.
TL;DR
On September 30 2021, an old root certificate of our SSL Certificate Authority expired. Technical details are available at the end of this post, but this was not a surprise, and had been telegraphed for quite some time. This is not a site or tracker bug. Most of our users, operating modern browsers and devices, should not notice any change. However, those on older desktops or servers, may have trouble connecting to our HTTPS tracker (HTTP is unaffected), SSL IRC server or site, and therefore have to update some software, or manually download a certificate.
How do I know if I am affected?
If, in the past 48 hours, you encountered errors such as 'Peer certificate cannot be authenticated with given CA certificates', 'unspecified system error', or complaints from an application that our SSL certificate has expired (it did not), you are likely impacted. Note that Firefox maintains its own root certificate store, so while your browser may be fine, other applications, such as your torrent client, may still not function with RED via SSL.
Hang on a minute, why are none of my other trackers impacted?
Perhaps they are using a different Certificate Authority; the issue described in this post only affects Let's Encrypt.
What should I do?
If this is happening on a managed seedbox, reach out to your provider, and let them know they need to update your SSL software / configuration. You can guide them by noting this issue is caused by the recent expiry of the Let's Encrypt's DST Root CA X3 certificate.
If this is happening on your own desktop or server, the solution depends on your OS and other details. First, see if you can fix the issue yourself by following the links below. If that fails, do not hesitate to ask for Help. As a last resort, temporary solution for tracker-related issues, you can remove the s from https in your announce URL.
Useful Links
https://letsencrypt.org/docs/dst-roo...eptember-2021/
https://letsencrypt.org/docs/certificate-compatibility/
https://docs.certifytheweb.com/docs/...9-letsencrypt/
https://community.letsencrypt.org/t/...ersions/141550
Discuss this post here
