NodeJS HTTPs request returns Socket Hang up

Question

const https = require("https");
const fs = require("fs");

const options = {
  hostname: "en.wikipedia.org",
  port: 443,
  path: "/wiki/George_Washington",
  method: "GET",
  // ciphers: 'DES-CBC3-SHA'
};

const req = https.request(options, (res) => {
  let responseBody = "";
  console.log("Response started");
  console.log(`Server Status: ${res.statusCode} `);
  console.log(res.headers);
  res.setEncoding("UTF-8");

  res.once("data", (chunk) => {
    console.log(chunk);
  });

  res.on("data", (chunk) => {
    console.log(`--chunk-- ${chunk.length}`);
    responseBody += chunk;
  });

  res.on("end", () => {
    fs.writeFile("gw.html", responseBody, (err) => {
      if (err) throw err;
      console.log("Downloaded file");
    });
  });
});

req.on("error", (err) => {
  console.log("Request problem", err);
});

returns

// Request problem { Error: socket hang up
//     at createHangUpError (_http_client.js:330:15)
//     at TLSSocket.socketOnEnd (_http_client.js:423:23)
//     at TLSSocket.emit (events.js:165:20)
//     at endReadableNT (_stream_readable.js:1101:12)
//     at process._tickCallback (internal/process/next_tick.js:152:19) code: 'ECONNRESET' }

Answer 1

http.request() opens a new tunnel to the server. It returns a Writable stream which allows you to send data to the server, and the callback gets called with the stream that the server responds with. Now the error you encountered (ECONNRESET) basically means that the tunnel was closed. That usually happens when an error occured on a low level (very unlikely) or the tunnel timed out because no data was received. In your case the server only responded when you sent something to it, even if it was an empty package, so all you have to do is to end the stream, causing it to get flushed as an empty packet to the server, which causes it to respond:

 req.end();

You might want to have a look at the request package which allows you to avoid dealing with such low-level things.