CoyoteCert for Laravel

Free TLS certificates, straight from the ACME catalog. No nginx reloads, no cron entries, no shell scripts, no separate container. Just a service provider, a config file, and a couple of Artisan commands.

Why the Laravel package and not the core library?

blendbyte/coyotecert is the raw ACME client. It does the cryptography, talks to the CA, validates your domains, and hands back a certificate. It is a library, so you wire everything yourself: storage, provider config, a challenge handler that can actually serve the token, a cron job to renew, error handling, logging.

This package does all of that for you inside Laravel. Here is the difference:

Core library on its own:

// You write this, somewhere, and you maintain it forever.
$cert = CoyoteCert::with(new LetsEncrypt())
    ->email(env('CERT_EMAIL'))
    ->storage(new DatabaseStorage($pdo, 'certs'))
    ->logger(Log::channel('certs'))
    ->identifiers('example.com')
    ->challenge(new MyCustomHttp01Handler('/var/www/.well-known/acme-challenge'))
    ->keyType(KeyType::EC_P256)
    ->onIssued(fn ($cert) => /* reload nginx, notify Slack, update secrets... */)
    ->issueOrRenew(30);

You also need to write MyCustomHttp01Handler, manage the webroot directory, configure nginx to serve those files, set up a cron job, handle the CertificateIssued side-effects yourself, and restart nginx when the cert changes.

This package:

php artisan cert:issue example.com

The service provider wires the storage, the logger, the challenge handler, and the provider from your config file. The HTTP-01 challenge is served by a registered route backed by your cache store. No webroot, no nginx config, no extra cron.

Requirements

• PHP 8.3+
• Laravel 12.0+ or 13.0+

Installation

composer require blendbyte/coyotecert-laravel

Publish the config file:

php artisan vendor:publish --tag=coyotecert-config

If you want to store certificates in the database, publish and run the migration:

php artisan vendor:publish --tag=coyotecert-migrations
php artisan migrate

Configuration

Open config/coyotecert.php. Everything has a sensible default but you need to set at least your email address before the CA will issue anything.

return [
    // Which CA to use. Required — no default, pick one consciously.
    // letsencrypt | letsencrypt-staging | buypass | buypass-staging
    // zerossl | google | custom
    'provider' => env('COYOTECERT_PROVIDER'),

    // Your contact email. The CA uses this to warn you about expiring
    // certificates and account issues. Required.
    'email' => env('COYOTECERT_EMAIL'),

    // Challenge type. http-01 works out of the box via the built-in route.
    // dns-01 requires you to bind a custom ChallengeHandlerInterface.
    'challenge' => env('COYOTECERT_CHALLENGE', 'http-01'),

    // Where to persist certificates and the ACME account key.
    // database | filesystem
    'storage' => env('COYOTECERT_STORAGE', 'database'),

    // Certificate key algorithm.
    // EC_P256 | EC_P384 | RSA_2048 | RSA_4096
    'key_type' => env('COYOTECERT_KEY_TYPE', 'EC_P256'),

    // How many days before expiry to trigger renewal in cert:renew.
    'renewal_days' => (int) env('COYOTECERT_RENEWAL_DAYS', 30),

    // Identities that cert:renew processes automatically (without --identity).
    'identities' => [
        // 'example.com',
        // 'www.example.com',
    ],

    // Provider-specific credentials.
    'providers' => [
        'zerossl' => [
            'api_key' => env('COYOTECERT_ZEROSSL_API_KEY'),
        ],
        'google' => [
            'eab_kid'  => env('COYOTECERT_GOOGLE_EAB_KID'),
            'eab_hmac' => env('COYOTECERT_GOOGLE_EAB_HMAC'),
        ],
        'custom' => [
            'directory_url' => env('COYOTECERT_CUSTOM_DIRECTORY_URL'),
        ],
    ],

    // Filesystem storage path (when storage = filesystem).
    'filesystem' => [
        'path' => env('COYOTECERT_FILESYSTEM_PATH', storage_path('coyotecert')),
    ],

    // Database storage options (when storage = database).
    'database' => [
        'connection' => env('COYOTECERT_DB_CONNECTION'),        // null = default
        'table'      => env('COYOTECERT_DB_TABLE', 'coyote_cert_storage'),
    ],
];

Minimal .env to get started with Let's Encrypt:

COYOTECERT_PROVIDER=letsencrypt
COYOTECERT_EMAIL=ops@example.com
COYOTECERT_STORAGE=database

HTTP-01 challenge, automatically

When you use http-01, the CA needs to fetch a token from http://yourdomain.com/.well-known/acme-challenge/<token>.

This package registers that route automatically. The challenge handler stores the token in your Laravel cache store when the ACME handshake starts, and the route reads it back and serves it as text/plain. When the handshake completes, the token is removed.

That means:

• No webroot directory to manage.
• No nginx location block to add.
• Works behind a load balancer as long as the cache store is shared (Redis, Memcached, database).
• Works on read-only filesystems and in containers.

The only thing you need is a working cache driver and DNS pointing at your app. Let's Encrypt does the rest.

Artisan commands

cert:issue

Issue a fresh certificate unconditionally. Use this for first-time setup or to force a re-issue.

php artisan cert:issue example.com

Certificate issued successfully.
Expires: 2025-07-18 14:22:05
Days remaining: 89

cert:renew

Renew certificates that are within the renewal window. By default, processes every identity in coyotecert.identities.

php artisan cert:renew

Renewed: example.com
Renewed: www.example.com

Renew a single identity without touching the config:

php artisan cert:renew --identity=example.com

Force re-issue regardless of expiry:

php artisan cert:renew --identity=example.com --force

If an identity fails, the command reports the error, continues to the next one, and exits with a non-zero status code at the end. Your monitoring picks that up.

cert:list

Show the status of every identity in coyotecert.identities at a glance.

php artisan cert:list

+------------------+---------------------+---------------------+----------------+---------+
| Identity         | Issued At           | Expires At          | Days Remaining | Expired |
+------------------+---------------------+---------------------+----------------+---------+
| example.com      | 2025-04-19 14:22:05 | 2025-07-18 14:22:05 | 89             | No      |
| www.example.com  | Not issued          | Not issued          | -              | -       |
+------------------+---------------------+---------------------+----------------+---------+

cert:status

Check the current certificate for an identity without hitting the CA at all.

php artisan cert:status example.com

+----------------+------------------------------+
| Field          | Value                        |
+----------------+------------------------------+
| Identity       | example.com                  |
| Identifiers    | example.com                  |
| Key Type       | EC_P256                       |
| Issued At      | 2025-04-19 14:22:05          |
| Expires At     | 2025-07-18 14:22:05          |
| Days Remaining | 89                           |
| Expired        | No                           |
+----------------+------------------------------+

cert:revoke

Revoke a certificate and remove it from storage. Useful when rotating for security reasons.

php artisan cert:revoke example.com

Certificate for [example.com] has been revoked and deleted.

Pass an ACME revocation reason code (RFC 8555 section 7.2):

php artisan cert:revoke example.com --reason=1  # keyCompromise

Events

Three events are dispatched through the Laravel event bus, so you can react to certificate changes with standard Laravel listeners.

All three carry a StoredCertificate $certificate and a string $identity. CertificateExpiring also carries int $daysUntilExpiry.

Reloading nginx after issuance

// app/Listeners/ReloadNginxOnCertChange.php
use CoyoteCert\Laravel\Events\CertificateIssued;

class ReloadNginxOnCertChange
{
    public function handle(CertificateIssued $event): void
    {
        // Write the new cert to disk then reload nginx.
        $cert = $event->certificate;
        file_put_contents('/etc/nginx/certs/' . $event->identity . '.pem', $cert->fullchain);
        shell_exec('nginx -s reload');
    }
}

Register it in EventServiceProvider (or with #[AsEventListener] in Laravel 11+):

protected $listen = [
    CertificateIssued::class => [
        ReloadNginxOnCertChange::class,
    ],
];

Sending expiry alerts

use CoyoteCert\Laravel\Events\CertificateExpiring;

class SendExpiryAlert
{
    public function handle(CertificateExpiring $event): void
    {
        // This fires before the renewal attempt, so you know a renewal
        // is in progress. If it succeeds, CertificateRenewed fires next.
        // If it fails, your monitoring has the failure and this alert
        // gives you a head start.
        Notification::route('mail', 'ops@example.com')
            ->notify(new CertExpiringNotification($event->identity, $event->daysUntilExpiry));
    }
}

Queued listeners

All three events work with queued listeners out of the box because they carry a StoredCertificate, which is a plain readonly class that serialises cleanly.

use Illuminate\Contracts\Queue\ShouldQueue;

class PushCertToVault implements ShouldQueue
{
    public function handle(CertificateIssued $event): void
    {
        // Push the new cert to HashiCorp Vault, AWS Secrets Manager, etc.
        Vault::write('secret/tls/' . $event->identity, [
            'cert'    => $event->certificate->certificate,
            'key'     => $event->certificate->privateKey,
            'chain'   => $event->certificate->fullchain,
        ]);
    }
}

Queue job

For DNS-01 challenges, or any case where you want issuance to happen off the main process, dispatch IssueCertificateJob:

use CoyoteCert\Laravel\Jobs\IssueCertificateJob;

// Issue or renew with the default 30-day renewal window.
IssueCertificateJob::dispatch('example.com');

// Override the renewal window.
IssueCertificateJob::dispatch('example.com', renewalDays: 14);

The job calls issueOrRenew() on the manager. If the certificate does not need renewal it exits immediately. If it does, it issues and fires the events.

Scheduled renewal

The service provider registers a daily cert:renew in Laravel's scheduler automatically. You do not need to add anything to routes/console.php or app/Console/Kernel.php. As long as your app has the standard scheduler cron entry (* * * * * php artisan schedule:run >> /dev/null 2>&1), renewals happen on their own.

Identities are read from coyotecert.identities in your config. Add every identity you want to auto-renew:

'identities' => [
    'example.com',
    'www.example.com',
    'api.example.com',
],

Storage backends

Database (default)

Stores the ACME account key and all certificates in a coyote_cert_storage table. Works with any database Laravel supports. Run the migration once:

php artisan vendor:publish --tag=coyotecert-migrations
php artisan migrate

Use a non-default connection if your certs should live in a separate database:

COYOTECERT_DB_CONNECTION=certs_db

Filesystem

Writes each certificate as a set of files under a directory. Good for single-server setups or when you need files on disk directly.

COYOTECERT_STORAGE=filesystem
COYOTECERT_FILESYSTEM_PATH=/etc/certs

Certificate authorities

Set COYOTECERT_PROVIDER to one of these:

DNS-01 challenge

DNS-01 is not wired by default because it requires a DNS provider API, which varies per setup. You implement ChallengeHandlerInterface and bind it yourself:

use CoyoteCert\Enums\AuthorizationChallengeEnum;
use CoyoteCert\Interfaces\ChallengeHandlerInterface;

class CloudflareDnsHandler implements ChallengeHandlerInterface
{
    public function supports(AuthorizationChallengeEnum $type): bool
    {
        return $type === AuthorizationChallengeEnum::DNS;
    }

    public function deploy(string $domain, string $token, string $keyAuthorization): void
    {
        // Create a _acme-challenge TXT record via the Cloudflare API.
        Cloudflare::dns()->createTxtRecord('_acme-challenge.' . $domain, $keyAuthorization);
    }

    public function cleanup(string $domain, string $token): void
    {
        // Delete the TXT record once the challenge is complete.
        Cloudflare::dns()->deleteTxtRecord('_acme-challenge.' . $domain);
    }
}

Bind it in a service provider:

use CoyoteCert\Interfaces\ChallengeHandlerInterface;

$this->app->bind(ChallengeHandlerInterface::class, CloudflareDnsHandler::class);

Then set COYOTECERT_CHALLENGE=dns-01 in your .env. The manager resolves the binding automatically.

Maintained by Blendbyte