using Rcurl with HTTPs

Question

I tried the following code in R on windows:

library(RCurl)
postForm("https://www.google.com/accounts/ClientLogin/",
    "email" = "[email protected]",
    "Passwd" = "abcd",
    "service" = "finance",
    "source" = "Test-1"
)

but go the following error:

Error in postForm()
SL certificate problem, verify that the CA cert is OK. Details:
error:14090086:SSL routines:SSL3_GET_SERVER_CERTIFICATE:certificate verify failed

How do I setup RCurl to allow use of HTTPs?

More of a guess than an answer, but does curlVersion()$protocol include "https"? If not, then you need to install a version of the curl library with ssl support. How to do that would depend on your operating system (the output of sessionInfo() might help) — Martin Morgan
– Martin Morgan, Commented Jul 18, 2011 at 23:36

Pak · Accepted Answer · 2013-05-24 14:45:47Z

13

just add .opts = list(ssl.verifypeer = FALSE) to your query

postForm("https://www.google.com/accounts/ClientLogin/",
    "email" = "[email protected]",
    "Passwd" = "abcd",
    "service" = "finance",
    "source" = "Test-1",
    .opts = list(ssl.verifypeer = FALSE))

answered May 24, 2013 at 14:45

Pak

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1 Comment

TARehman Over a year ago

This answer is dangerously incorrect. You should not disable verification that the connection is valid without fully understanding the implications of that decision.

Thomas · Accepted Answer · 2014-02-01 12:22:47Z

12

You need to install a SSL library.

For windows you can get one here: Download "OpenSSL for Windows" version 0.9.8k
Unzip to a temporary folder, and copy the files "libeay32.dll" and "ssleay32.dll" from the "bin" sub-folder to R\library\RCurl\lib\i386.
Also you might copy it into the same directory as the R.exe.

Then check if you have access to the https protocol:

library(RCurl)
curlVersion()$protocol 
## [1] "tftp"   "ftp"    "telnet" "dict"   "ldap"   "http"   "file"   "https"     
## [9] "ftps"   "scp"    "sftp"

Then install a new set of credential files:

ca-bundle.crt can be found at : http://curl.haxx.se/ca/cacert.pem

rename / copy to ca-bundle.crt

Test with this:

getURL("https://www.google.com/accounts/ClientLogin/?service=finance&[email protected]&Passwd=abcd&source=Test-1", 
       cainfo = "path to R/library/RCurl/CurlSSL/ca-bundle.crt")

edited Feb 1, 2014 at 12:22

Thomas

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answered Nov 25, 2011 at 11:47

Mischa Vreeburg

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1 Comment

user1471980 Over a year ago

@Mscha Vreeburg, I followed your steps, I get this error: Error in function (type, msg, asError = TRUE) : error setting certificate verify locations: CAfile: C:/Users/Documents/R/win-library/3.2/RCurl/CurlSSL/ca-bundle.crt CApath: none

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