TekStacks checks your domains and SSL certificates every morning and tells you when the real expiry date differs from the one you recorded.

Overview

Two kinds of service are checked automatically:

• SSL certificates: TekStacks connects to each hostname the certificate covers, on port 443, and reads the certificate it serves. It keeps the soonest expiry it finds, who issued it, and any hostname whose certificate does not cover that name. Up to ten hostnames are checked per certificate.
• Domains: TekStacks looks the domain up in public registration data (RDAP) and reads its expiry date and registrar.

What a check finds is kept beside your record. It never changes your expiry date on its own: when the two disagree, the service page offers to use the date it found.

Only Active services are checked. Hosting, subscriptions, support contracts and other kinds have no automatic check.

Requirements

• Role: anyone who can see services sees the results. Check now and Use this date need Add, edit, renew and delete them (Admin, Manager and Technician by default).

Set up a service to be checked

1. For a domain, name the service exactly as the domain is registered, such as acme.com, and set Kind to Domain.
2. For a certificate, set Kind to SSL certificate and list every hostname it covers, one per line, such as acme.com and www.acme.com. For a wildcard, enter *.acme.com; TekStacks checks acme.com.

See Services for adding one.

Read the result

Open the service. The Certificate check or Registration check section shows:

• Found expiring and the date, with the issuer and hostname (certificates) or the registrar (domains).
• This record says with your date, and a Use this date button, when the two disagree.
• A problem, in red, when the check could not finish or found something wrong.
• When it was last checked.

Before the first check it says Not checked yet.

Check now

1. Open the service.
2. In the check section, click Check now.

The result appears at once, as Checked or Checked, with a problem.

Use the date it found

1. Open the service. When the dates disagree, the check section shows This record says with your date.
2. Click Use this date and confirm.

The old date stays in the activity log.

Troubleshooting

"The certificate on www.acme.com does not cover that name." The server answers on that hostname with a certificate issued for other names. Fix the certificate on the server, or remove the hostname from the service if it no longer belongs.

"Could not connect to acme.com on port 443." Nothing answered on HTTPS. Check that the site is up and reachable from the internet.

"acme.com does not resolve to a public address." The name has no public DNS record, or points to a private address. Internal sites cannot be checked.

"No registration was found for acme.com." Check the spelling of the service's name.

"The registry for acme.com does not publish its expiry." Some registries do not share expiry dates. Keep the date up to date by hand.

"The registration lookup did not answer. It is tried again tomorrow." The public lookup service was unavailable. Click Check now later, or wait for the next morning.

FAQ

Does a check update my expiry date? No. You choose, with Use this date.

Is a canceled service checked? No. Only active domains and certificates are.