`delete` might check if a certificate is in-use to avoid breaking web server configs

[alexzorin]

There's have been a few instances of Certbot users ending up with busted Apache/nginx configurations after using certbot delete against in-use certificates.

Without a sophisticated understanding of how the apache/nginx plugins work, the user couldn't reasonably be expected to know that they need to remove these references before delete can be safely used.

I cannot find any user-facing documentation that identifies this limitation and risk.

Some potential approaches for mitigations:

• delete, when running interactively, might warn the user that they should ensure that no active configuration makes reference to this certificate. Additionally, include the same information in the help topic for delete. Bare minimum warning to the user. Or,
• delete, when running interactively, might refuse to run if there is an installer and it can use the installer plugin to identify that the certificate is in use. Requires an enhancement to IInstaller. Or,
• delete might undeploy the certificate if there is an installer, where undeploy might mean replacing with snakeoil or removing the virtual host entirely. Requires an enhancement to IInstaller.

[stale]

We've made a lot of changes to Certbot since this issue was opened. If you still have this issue with an up-to-date version of Certbot, can you please add a comment letting us know? This helps us to better see what issues are still affecting our users. If there is no activity in the next 30 days, this issue will be automatically closed.

[stale]

This issue has been closed due to lack of activity, but if you think it should be reopened, please open a new issue with a link to this one and we'll take a look.

[bmw]

I personally think we should do something here so I'm reopening this issue.