This is apparently has nothing to do with curl. I got the same
intermittent errors with lynx, w3m, wget, you name it. I am using
OpenSSL 0.9.8g 19 Oct 2007.

On 23/10/07 18:27, Jake Goulding wrote:

> Hey all:
>
> We use curl to retrieve webpages, and recently started receiving an
> intermittent (40-60% of the time) error when retrieving a page from the
> CIA. About two weeks ago, they switched to running https only, with the
> http URLs being forwarded to the https equivalents.
>
> The error we receive is:
>
> $ curl 'https://www.cia.gov/about-cia/faqs/'
> curl: (35) Unknown SSL protocol error in connection to www.cia.gov:443
>
> Using the --trace option, I see this:
>
> == Info: About to connect() to www.cia.gov port 443 (#0)
> == Info: Trying 198.81.129.100... == Info: connected
> == Info: Connected to www.cia.gov (198.81.129.100) port 443 (#0)
> == Info: successfully set certificate verify locations:
> == Info: CAfile: /etc/ssl/certs/ca-certificates.crt
> CApath: none
> == Info: SSLv2, Client hello (1):
> => Send SSL data, 124 bytes (0x7c)
> 0000: 01 03 01 00 63 00 00 00 10 00 00 39 00 00 38 00 ....c......9..8.
> 0010: 00 35 00 00 88 00 00 87 00 00 84 00 00 16 00 00 .5..............
> 0020: 13 00 00 0a 07 00 c0 00 00 33 00 00 32 00 00 2f .........3..2../
> 0030: 00 00 45 00 00 44 00 00 41 00 00 07 05 00 80 03 ..E..D..A.......
> 0040: 00 80 00 00 05 00 00 04 01 00 80 00 00 15 00 00 ................
> 0050: 12 00 00 09 06 00 40 00 00 14 00 00 11 00 00 08 ......@.........
> 0060: 00 00 06 04 00 80 00 00 03 02 00 80 c9 f7 89 ff ................
> 0070: 74 f1 92 59 c8 a0 f1 ba ab c0 dd 89 t..Y........
> == Info: Unknown SSL protocol error in connection to www.cia.gov:443
> == Info: Closing connection #0
>
> Unfortunately, I don't grok SSL hex :-).
>
> I have tried this and received the same error with the following versions:
> curl-7.12.1-8.rhel4 / openssl-0.9.7a-43.14
> curl-7.12.1-11.el4 / openssl-0.9.7a-43.16
> curl-7.16.1 / openssl-0.9.8e
> curl-7.17.0 / openssl-0.9.8f
>
> Firefox does not seem to have any issues with this page.
>
> Any help would be greatly appreciated. Please let me know if I can
> provide more information.
>
> Thanks!
>
> -Jake
>

-- 
Dr. Zvi Har'El      mailto:rl_at_math.technion.ac.il    Department of Mathematics
tel:+972-54-4227607                  Technion - Israel Institute of Technology
fax:+972-4-8293388  http://www.math.technion.ac.il/~rl/    Haifa 32000, ISRAEL
"If you can't say somethin' nice, don't say nothin' at all." -- Thumper (1942)