Gremlin Scenario: Linux TLS/SSL certificate expiration

How it works

How this Scenario works

This Scenario advances the system clock on your Linux hosts forward by one day, one week, and one month. This triggers certificate validation logic and reveals any TLS/SSL certificates that will expire within those time windows—without waiting for them to actually expire.

Use cases

Why run this Scenario?

Proactively identify expiring certificates on Linux infrastructure before they cause production outages.
Test certificate rotation automation on Linux systems, including Certbot and ACME integrations.
Verify that monitoring detects upcoming certificate expirations on your Linux hosts.
Validate that NTP synchronization recovers correctly after the time shift on Linux.

Result

What to expect when you run it

If a TLS certificate expires without renewal, the service on the Linux host fails gracefully and alerts trigger immediately.

Keep going

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Linux TLS/SSL certificate expiration