Troubleshooting “Agent Cannot Be Reached” or “Inactive Agent” Status in AutoInstall SSL
If AutoInstall SSL shows that your agent cannot be reached or is inactive, this means that the AutoInstall SSL agent installed on your web server is not checking in when scheduled. This means that the agent may not be fully managing your SSL certificate and could allow your certificate to expire.
Here are a few ways to troubleshoot this error:
| Troubleshooting Step | Solution |
| Check if the server is offline or is experiencing other issues. | Have you tried turning the server off and back on again? 😊 |
| Has the website been moved to a new server that does not have the AutoInstall SSL agent installed and configured? Try running runautoinstallssl.sh (Linux) or AutoInstallSSL.exe (Windows) on your server to see if the program is installed. | In CertPanel, open the Manage Order page for the SSL certificate, then click on the AutoInstall SSL Installation Instructions. Follow the steps to install the agent on your new server and re-install the SSL certificate. |
| Was the AutoInstall SSL agent removed from the server? You can check if it’s installed by opening a terminal and running runautoinstallssl.sh (Linux) or AutoInstallSSL.exe (Windows). | In CertPanel, open the Manage Order page for the SSL certificate, then click on the AutoInstall SSL Installation Instructions. Follow the steps to re-install the agent on your server and re-install the SSL certificate. |
| Check if the cron jobs are missing or failing. | Export diagnostic logs to diagnose the root cause. |
Tips for troubleshooting cron jobs on Linux servers:
On Linux servers, AutoInstall SSL relies on cron jobs to run scheduled tasks such as checking to see if your certificates need to be renewed. Here are a few tips to troubleshoot if the cron jobs are not running on your server:
- You can check your server’s logs to see if the AutoInstall SSL cron jobs are running. Look in /var/log/syslog or /var/log/cron
- Check if your server’s cron daemon (cron or crond) is running. See https://askubuntu.com/questions/85558/verify-if-crontab-works
- Check if your system has restrictions on cron jobs, such as a disallowed user in /etc/cron.deny or if the system is using SELinux or AppArmor that can have policy-based restrictions.
- Check in /etc/cron.d/ to ensure the AutoInstall SSL cron jobs were not manually deleted or disabled (eg. by changing the file extension to .bak or .disabled)