letsencrypt / letsencrypt/boulder

Improve problem+json message for private IP addresses during HTTP-01 verification

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Go
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Merged PRs (30d)
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Description

Over in the help community we somewhat frequently encounter situations where certificate seekers have private/non-publicly-routable IP addresses in their A/AAAA records for identifier domain names while trying to satisfy HTTP-01 challenges.

This message:

No valid IP addresses found for example.com

is rather vague.

What is a valid IP address? My IP address is in the A.B.C.D format, so it looks OK to me.

You get the picture. Can this problem detail message be enhanced to give a better hint as to the potentially evident problem?

Contributor guide

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First steps

  1. Read the whole issue, then the project's contributing guide.
  2. Comment on the issue to say you are picking it up — it saves two people doing the same work.
  3. Fork the repository and make your change on a branch.
  4. Open a pull request that references the issue number.

Research direction

Start by locating the HTTP-01 verification path that produces the exact “No valid IP addresses found” problem detail. Review how private or non-publicly routable A/AAAA records are handled, then define a clearer hint that explains why those addresses are invalid and verify the updated message.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Assessment

Tech stack
go
Domain
security
Issue type
Feature
Difficulty
3/5
Estimated time
1-2 days
Activity status
Stale
Clarity
Mostly clear
Newbie friendliness
35/100

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