Hi,

I am trying to get curl to perform a connection to an https server. I am
well used to performing standard http get/post connections, but the
world of ssl, encryption, certificates etc is new to me. I have been
reading the section on https in
http://curl.haxx.se/docs/readme.curl.html, and I have a couple of newbie
questions I was hoping someone could answer, or at least point me in the
direction of a resource.

1) It sounds as if each browser contains a "personal" certificate which
assists the server in authentication. If I want to access an https site
in the same manner as my browser, I need to

- export the browser's certificate
- convert from PKCS#12 format to PEM format using OpenSSL
- use the PEM formatted certificate as a -E option with curl

is this correct ?

2) http://curl.haxx.se/docs/httpscripting.html suggests there are a
number of ways of doing https connections. In particular it suggests
that sometimes you might not need a certificate (ie just use 'curl
https:/www.xxx') at all. How does one determine whether one needs a
certificate to access a site or not ?

thanks,

Justin

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