file_get_contents ignoring verify_peer=>false?

Question

file_get_contents with https hosts works just fine, except for a particular host (test api server from some company - ip whitelisted, can't give you URL to test). This rules out not loaded https modules and other initial setup mistakes.

I have tested with multiple PHP installations, all at v5.3.3, 32bits, Debian 32bits.

The request works with cURL, but only if setting curl_setopt($curl, CURLOPT_SSL_VERIFYPEER, 0);. However, setting verify_peer"=>false on the context for file_get_contents seems to make no difference.

With file_get_contents, the exact same request (same URL, same XML POST data) fails with SSL: Connection reset by peer:

$arrContextOptions=array(
    "http" => array(
        "method" => "POST",
        "header" => 
            "Content-Type: application/xml; charset=utf-8;\r\n".
            "Connection: close\r\n",
        "ignore_errors" => true,
        "timeout" => (float)30.0,
        "content" => $strRequestXML,
    ),
    "ssl"=>array(
        "allow_self_signed"=>true,
        "verify_peer"=>false,
    ),
);

file_get_contents("https://somedomain:2000/abc/", false, stream_context_create($arrContextOptions));

.

Has anyone encountered this with file_get_contents? Any ideas how to debug?

Answer 1

You missed verify_peer_name. If you set that to false as well, the request works:

$arrContextOptions=array(
    "http" => array(
        "method" => "POST",
        "header" => 
            "Content-Type: application/xml; charset=utf-8;\r\n".
            "Connection: close\r\n",
        "ignore_errors" => true,
        "timeout" => (float)30.0,
        "content" => $strRequestXML,
    ),
    "ssl"=>array(
        "allow_self_signed"=>true,
        "verify_peer"=>false,
        "verify_peer_name"=>false,
    ),
);

file_get_contents("https://somedomain:2000/abc/", false, stream_context_create($arrContextOptions));

Answer 2

dont' know if this will actually help, but do try removing the SSL options from your option array.

The reason behind this: according to http://www.php.net/manual/en/context.ssl.php , verify_peer is false by default.

allow_self_signed REQUIRES verify_peer, and is false by default.

From the above, I gather that allow_self_signed probably overrides your setting for verify_peer.

So please try without any option for SSL, or without the allow_self_signed, and let us know if that helped any.