Working around OpenSSL::SSL::SSLErrors

If your requests blow up in Ruby or CURL, the server you're connecting to might only support requests with older SSL/TLS versions.

You might get an error like: OpenSSL::SSL::SSLError: SSL_connect SYSCALL returned=5 errno=0 state=unknown state

SSL Server Test

This SSL Server Test Show archive.org snapshot can help finding out which SSL/TLS versions the server can handle.

Ruby

In Ruby, you can teach Net::HTTP to use a specific SSL/TLS version.

Copyuri = URI.parse(url)

ssl_options = {
   use_ssl: true,
   ssl_version: 'SSLv3'
}

Net::HTTP.start(uri.host, ssl_options) do |http|
   http.get uri.request_uri
end

CURL

In CURL, you can specify the SSL/TLS protocol version to use like this:

Copy✘ > curl -i https://www.econda-monitor.de/els/logging
curl: (35) Unknown SSL protocol error in connection to www.econda-monitor.de:443

✔ > curl -i --sslv3 https://www.econda-monitor.de/els/logging
HTTP/1.1 200 OK
...

✔ > curl -i --tlsv1 https://www.econda-monitor.de/els/logging
HTTP/1.1 200 OK
...

curl -i includes the protocol headers in the output, so you'll see the response's status code.