openssl doesn't work but in browser it does

Question

I have to make some request to a https site via openssl. In the browser there is no problem at all, it's a simple GET request without any cookies, I watch it via fiddler. My problem is that I have to make this request via openssl and it waits too long and then I get an empty response.

It looks like:

(cat <REQUEST>; sleep 5) | openssl s_client -quiet -connect <HOST>:<PORT> > <variable>

I have many https sites and only one of them causes this. What could be the problem?

Your CAs for your openssl client are probably out of date or they can't validate the certificate in your host's web server. What OS are your running openssl from ? Is it an old OS? — Rico
– Rico, Commented Jan 30, 2014 at 20:06

Sir Athos · Accepted Answer · 2014-01-30 20:35:48Z

1

Make sure you send all the headers your browser does. In particular, Referer and Accept may play a role in it (and Cookie, but you said there are no cookies).

Other than that, the server's SSL certificate may be unverifiable by your client. The browser is usually more forgiving, so your request would still be successful. If you can translate your request into a wget command (i.e. wget https://host:port/URL), if the certificate has a problem it will report something like "cannot verify <host>'s certificate". If you attempt the same request with wget --no-check-certificate https://host:port/URL and it succeeds, you'll know the certificate is the problem.

answered Jan 30, 2014 at 20:35

Sir Athos

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