I'll plug my own client [1], which is also completely manual for those who don't want to go all in on the magic automation just yet. It also has DNS verification, which is probably more convenient in most cases.

[1] https://github.com/veeti/manuale

The client I use: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10676685

The CLI version of the LE client is pretty simple to use. Literally one command line.

Yes, it's almost too convenient. Lazy me is still slightly miffed that auto nginx is not fully supported, however.

Sorry for the delay. It's turned out that parsing is hard, especially in the absence of a formal grammar for configuration file formats!

If you don't need the certs automatically installed, nginx users are generally doing well with the webroot plugin (which automatically creates files to perform the ACME challenge, regardless of what webserver is serving those files). This will also work for renewal, as long as you're able to do the initial configuration of your nginx to work with the certs you get.

It might be enough to convince me to learn linux for real this time.

Can I use that for renewal as well?

Used it today. Great experience!