Does PHP SoapClient support HTTPS connections

Question

I'm using XAMPP on Windows and try to work with PHP soap extension SoapClient. I'm trying to load a WSDL file hosted in HTTPS site using the following code

<?php
    $myClient=new SoapClient("https://smi.sp.f-secure.com/smi/5.1/services/EchoService?wsdl");
?>

I get the following error:

Fatal error: Uncaught SoapFault exception: [WSDL] SOAP-ERROR: Parsing WSDL: Couldn't load from 'https://smi.sp.f-secure.com/smi/5.1/services/EchoService?wsdl' : failed to load external entity "https://smi.sp.f-secure.com/smi/5.1/services/EchoService?wsdl" in C:\xampp\htdocs\dev\w3schools\soapClient\index.php:2 Stack trace:
#0 C:\xampp\htdocs\dev\w3schools\soapClient\index.php(2): SoapClient->SoapClient('https://smi.sp....')
#1 {main} thrown in C:\xampp\htdocs\dev\w3schools\soapClient\index.php on line 2

Now I took a network capture during the request and saw that HTTPS communication does not work OK on SSL Level. Wireshark shows a packet on Server Key Exchange my workstation responds with:

TLSv1 Record Layer: Alert (Level: Fatal, Description: Certificate Unknown)

Using nuSOAP client or soapUI utility from the same computer, I'm able to connect to the service normally. So no certificate problems I guess.

So definately it's something with SOAP extension and SSL communication. Can anyone help? Give hints what to look for?

Answer 1

To workaround this error you could deactivate the SSL certificate validation. But keep in mind, that this should only be done for test cases, because this makes your connection insecure!

You can pass a stream context when instantiating the SoapClient like this:

<?php
$myClient = new SoapClient("https://smi.sp.f-secure.com/smi/5.1/services/EchoService?wsdl", [
    'stream_context' => stream_context_create([
        'ssl' => [
            'verify_peer' => false,
            'verify_peer_name' => false,
        ],
    ]),
]);

If you have a valid certificate but it is selfsigned, there is another solution (more secure):

<?php
$myClient = new SoapClient("https://smi.sp.f-secure.com/smi/5.1/services/EchoService?wsdl", [
    'stream_context' => stream_context_create([
        'ssl' => [
            'allow_self_signed' => true,
        ],
    ]),
]);