To make a cURL request with a custom SSL client certificate and key, follow these steps:
- Export the client certificate and private key:
- Convert your certificate and private key to PEM format if they are not already in that format. You can use OpenSSL for this. Consider the example files
client.crt and client.key.
- Combine the client certificate and private key into a single PEM file:
cat client.crt client.key > client.pem
- Make the cURL request using the
--cert and --key options:
curl --cert client.pem --key client.pem https://example.com
Replace https://example.com with the URL you want to request.
Additional options and considerations:
- If the client certificate requires a passphrase, use the
--pass option followed by the passphrase in the cURL command.
- You can specify a separate certificate file and key file instead of combining them into a single PEM file by using the
--cert and --key options separately.
- If the server requires a specific SSL/TLS version, use the
--tls-max or --tls13-ciphers options to set the desired version or cipher suite.
- For more complex scenarios, you may need to include additional cURL options such as
--cacert to specify a certificate authority (CA) certificate if the server's CA is not globally recognized.
- Adjust the command according to the specific requirements and options of your cURL version.