php - SSL error SSL3_GET_SERVER_CERTIFICATE:certificate verify failed

Question

After upgrading to PHP 5.6 I get an error when trying to connect to a server via fsockopen()..

The certificate on the server (host) is self-signed

PHP Warning: fsockopen(): SSL operation failed with code 1. OpenSSL Error messages: error:14090086:SSL routines:SSL3_GET_SERVER_CERTIFICATE:certificate verify failed

code

if($fp = fsockopen($host, $port, $errno, $errstr, 20)){
    $this->request = 'POST '.substr($this->url, strlen($this->host)).' HTTP/1.1'.$crlf
        .'Host: '.$this->host.$crlf
        .'Content-Length: '.$content_length.$crlf
        .'Connection: Close'.$crlf.$crlf
        .$body;
    fwrite($fp, $this->request);

    while($line = fgets($fp)){
        if($line !== false){
            $this->response .= $line;
        }
    }

    fclose($fp);
}

Have tried

# cd /etc/ssl/certs/
# wget http://curl.haxx.se/ca/cacert.pem

php.ini

openssl.cafile = "/etc/ssl/certs/cacert.pem"

But the script still fails to work

update

This works

echo file_get_contents("/etc/ssl/certs/cacert.pem");

update 2

$contextOptions = array(
    'ssl' => array(
        'verify_peer' => true, // You could skip all of the trouble by changing this to false, but it's WAY uncool for security reasons.
        'cafile' => '/etc/ssl/certs/cacert.pem',
        //'CN_match' => 'example.com', // Change this to your certificates Common Name (or just comment this line out if not needed)
        'ciphers' => 'HIGH:!SSLv2:!SSLv3',
        'disable_compression' => true,
    )
);

$context = stream_context_create($contextOptions);

$fp = stream_socket_client("{$host}:{$port}", $errno, $errstr, 20, STREAM_CLIENT_CONNECT, $context);

error

PHP Warning: stream_socket_client(): SSL operation failed with code 1. OpenSSL Error messages: error:14090086:SSL routines:SSL3_GET_SERVER_CERTIFICATE:certificate verify failed

Answer 1

The file that you downloaded (http://curl.haxx.se/ca/cacert.pem) is a bundle of the root certificates from the major trusted certificate authorities. You said that the remote host has a self-signed SSL certificate, so it didn't use a trusted certificate. The openssl.cafile setting needs to point to the CA certificate that was used to sign the SSL certificate on the remote host. PHP 5.6 has been improved over previous versions of PHP to now verify peer certificates and host names by default (http://php.net/manual/en/migration56.openssl.php)

You'll need to locate the CA certificate that was generated on the server that signed the SSL certificate and copy it to this server. If you're using self-signed certificates, you'll need to add the CA cert that was used to sign the remote host's SSL certificate to the trusted store on the server you're connecting from OR use stream contexts to use that certificate for each individual request. Adding it to the trusted certificates is the simplest solution. Just add the contents of the remote host's CA cert to the end of the cacert.pem file you downloaded.

Previous:

fsockopen doesn't support stream contexts, so use stream_socket_client instead. It returns a resource that can be used with all the commands that fsockopen resources can.

This should be a drop in replacement for the snippet you have in your question:

<?php

$contextOptions = array(
    'ssl' => array(
        'verify_peer' => true, // You could skip all of the trouble by changing this to false, but it's WAY uncool for security reasons.
        'cafile' => '/etc/ssl/certs/cacert.pem',
        'CN_match' => 'example.com', // Change this to your certificates Common Name (or just comment this line out if not needed)
        'ciphers' => 'HIGH:!SSLv2:!SSLv3',
        'disable_compression' => true,
    )
);

$context = stream_context_create($contextOptions);

$fp = stream_socket_client("tcp://{$host}:{$port}", $errno, $errstr, 20, STREAM_CLIENT_CONNECT, $context);

if (!$fp) {

    echo "$errstr ({$errno})<br />
";

}else{
    
    $this->request = 'POST '.substr($this->url, strlen($this->host)).' HTTP/1.1'.$crlf
        .'Host: '.$this->host.$crlf
        .'Content-Length: '.$content_length.$crlf
        .'Connection: Close'.$crlf.$crlf
        .$body;

    fwrite($fp, $this->request);

    while (!feof($fp)) {
        $this->response .= fgets($fp);
    }

    fclose($fp);

}