diff --git a/.gitignore b/.gitignore
index e4a93a6..b4a04da 100644
--- a/.gitignore
+++ b/.gitignore
@@ -10,7 +10,6 @@ logs/certbot/*
 
 # ignore generated certificates for haproxy
 data/certificates/*
-!data/certificates/.placeholder
 
 # ignore rtmp directories
 data/rtmp/hls/*
diff --git a/data/certificates/.placeholder b/data/certificates/.placeholder
deleted file mode 100644
index e69de29..0000000
diff --git a/gen-selfsigned.sh b/gen-selfsigned.sh
index f0b420f..7316302 100755
--- a/gen-selfsigned.sh
+++ b/gen-selfsigned.sh
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
 #!/bin/bash
 
+mkdir -p data/certificates
 cd data/certificates
 openssl genrsa -out default.key 2048
 openssl req -new -key default.key -out default.csr