How to Use acme4j

acme4j is a client library that helps connecting to ACME servers without worrying about specification details.

The ACME protocol uses a public key to identify your account, so the very first step is to create a key pair. You can use external tools or standard Java methods to create it. A more convenient way is to use the KeyPairUtils class in the acme4j-utils module.

This call will generate a RSA key pair with a 2048 bit key:

KeyPair keyPair = KeyPairUtils.createKeyPair(2048);

You can also create an elliptic curve key pair:

KeyPair keyPair = KeyPairUtils.createECKeyPair("secp256r1");

CAUTION: Your KeyPair is the only key to your account. If you should lose it, you will be locked out from your account and certificates. The API does currently not offer a way to recover access after a key loss. The only way is to contact the CA and ask for assistance. It is strongly recommended to keep your key pair in a safe place!

To save a KeyPair (actually, the private key of the key pair) to a pem file, use this snippet:

try (FileWriter fw = new FileWriter("keypair.pem")) {
  KeyPairUtils.writeKeyPair(keyPair, fw);
}

The following snippet reads the private key from a pem file, and returns a KeyPair.

try (FileReader fr = New FileReader("keypair.pem")) {
  return KeyPairUtils.readKeyPair(fr);
}

Now that you have created (and saved) your account’s key pair, you can start with registering an account and getting your first certificate. These steps need to be performed:

• Create a Session object
• Register and Create an Account
• Authorize your Domains
• Request and Download a Certificate