file_get_contents with https?

Question

I'm working on setting up credit card processing and needed to use a workaround for CURL, and the following code worked fine when I was using the test server (which wasn't calling an SSL URL), but now when I am testing it on the working server with https, it doesn't work ("failed to open stream").

function send($packet, $url) {
  $ctx = stream_context_create(
    array(
      'http'=>array(
        'header'=>"Content-type: application/x-www-form-urlencoded",
        'method'=>'POST',
        'content'=>$packet
      )
    )
  );
  return file_get_contents($url, 0, $ctx);
}

Answer 1

This is probably due to your target server not having a valid SSL certificate.

Answer 2

Taken from the comments in the PHP manual for stream_context_create

edit: removed code as it was not helpful

HTTPS is supported starting from PHP 4.3.0, if you have compiled in support for OpenSSL. Also, make sure the target server has a valid certificate, the firewall allows outbound connections and allow_url_fopen in php.ini is set to true.

Answer 3

Try the following script to see if there is an https wrapper available for your php scripts.

$w = stream_get_wrappers();
echo 'openssl: ',  extension_loaded  ('openssl') ? 'yes':'no', "\n";
echo 'http wrapper: ', in_array('http', $w) ? 'yes':'no', "\n";
echo 'https wrapper: ', in_array('https', $w) ? 'yes':'no', "\n";
echo 'wrappers: ', var_dump($w);

the output should be something like

openssl: yes
http wrapper: yes
https wrapper: yes
wrappers: array(11) {
  [...]
}

Answer 4

Sometimes a server will choose not to respond based on what it sees or doesn't see in the http request headers (such as an appropriate user agent). If you can connect with a browser, grab the headers it sends and mimic them in your stream context.