Net::SSLeay::Handle - Perl module that lets SSL (HTTPS) sockets be handled as standard file handles.

  use Net::SSLeay::Handle qw/shutdown/;
  my ($host, $port) = ("localhost", 443);

  tie(*SSL, "Net::SSLeay::Handle", $host, $port);

  print SSL "GET / HTTP/1.0\r\n";
  shutdown(\*SSL, 1);
  print while (<SSL>);
  close SSL;

Net::SSLeay::Handle allows you to request and receive HTTPS web pages using old-fashion file handles as in:

    print SSL "GET / HTTP/1.0\r\n";

and

    print while (<SSL>);

If you export the shutdown routine, then the only extra code that you need to add to your program is the tie function as in:

    my $socket;
    if ($scheme eq "https") {
        tie(*S2, "Net::SSLeay::Handle", host, $port);
        $socket = \*S2;
    else {
        $socket = Net::SSLeay::Handle->make_socket(host, $port);
    }
    print $socket $request_headers;
    ...

One of the motivations for writing this module was to avoid duplicating socket creation code (which is mostly error handling). The calls to tie() above where it is passed a CW$host and CW$port is provided for convenience testing. If you already have a socket connected to the right host and port, S1, then you can do something like:

    my $socket \*S1;
    if ($scheme eq "https") {
        tie(*S2, "Net::SSLeay::Handle", $socket);
        $socket = \*S2;
    }
    my $last_sel = select($socket); $| = 1; select($last_sel);
    print $socket $request_headers;
    ...

Note: As far as I know you must be careful with the globs in the tie() function. The first parameter must be a glob (*SOMETHING) and the last parameter must be a reference to a glob (\*SOMETHING_ELSE) or a scaler that was assigned to a reference to a glob (as in the example above)

Also, the two globs must be different. When I tried to use the same glob, I got a core dump.

None by default.

You can export the shutdown() function.

It is suggested that you do export shutdown() or use the fully qualified Net::SSLeay::Handle::shutdown() function to shutdown SSL sockets. It should be smart enough to distinguish between SSL and non-SSL sockets and do the right thing.

  use Net::SSLeay::Handle qw/shutdown/;
  my ($host, $port) = ("localhost", 443);

  tie(*SSL, "Net::SSLeay::Handle", $host, $port);

  print SSL "GET / HTTP/1.0\r\n";
  shutdown(\*SSL, 1);
  print while (<SSL>);
  close SSL;

Better error handling. Callback routine?

Tying to a file handle is a little tricky (for me at least).

The first parameter to tie() must be a glob (*SOMETHING) and the last parameter must be a reference to a glob (\*SOMETHING_ELSE) or a scaler that was assigned to a reference to a glob ($s = \*SOMETHING_ELSE). Also, the two globs must be different. When I tried to use the same glob, I got a core dump.

I was able to associate attributes to globs created by this module (like *SSL above) by making a hash of hashes keyed by the file head1.

Support for old perls may not be 100%. If in trouble try 5.6.0 or newer.

Please see Net-SSLeay-Handle-0.50/Changes file.

If you let this module construct sockets for you with Perl versions below v.5.6 then there is a slight memory leak. Other upgrade your Perl, or create the sockets yourself. The leak was created to let these older versions of Perl access more than one Handle at a time.

Jim Bowlin jbowlin@linklint.org

Net::SSLeay, perl(1), http://openssl.org/