Snippet - Simple HTTPS Web Client

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1

Simple HTTPS Web Client

The following demo illustrates how to use SSL to request a secure webpage. The demo will request the page source, and print it to the output window. In order to do this, you must add a security certificate as a resource to validate the page.

This is currently supported on EMX only.

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Hi Steven,

Nice example, but since I’m no expert in such matters (SSL, HTTPS, etc.) if possible I’d like to check with you a few things.

  • Can this example be used also for POST or PUT operations? If so, what modifications would it require in order to support these operations?
  • How does one go about inserting a certificate as a project resource? ( Resource1.BinaryResources.VerisignCA )
  • A web proxy should only be configured if the network this client will be in uses one, right? ( HttpWebRequest.DefaultWebProxy = null; )

Will this example work on a FEZ Spider (Gadgeteer) board?

3

I’m not that well versed on SSL, HTTPS, certificates, etc. I do understand the concepts behind them and what they’re used for, but I never had to actually work with these artifacts directly before - specially codingwise. I’m aiming to build a web service (haven’t decided yet which .Net service framework to use: WCF, ASP.NET Web API, Service Stack, etc.) and my NETMF project would be used to make POST requests to this service, which would be implemented with a REST-based interface. My greatest concern is with “authorization”, since this will be exposed on the public Internet and I don’t want unauthorized clients posting to my service. I’m not sure if SSL is the (only) answer for this (maybe I could filter the requests by IP?), so right now I’m trying to gather some information that might guide my decision process and, in time, my coding efforts.

From what you’re saying here, I assume that my service would need to be hosted on a web server configured with a valid certificate, right? This is kinda of “square one” for enabling SSL communications, right? But I’m not sure if I understand what you mean by “storing the root ca FROM my target page”.

4

No problem. I’ll open another issue so we can all tackle the more “general” aspect of my inquiry. Nevertheless, I do think my considerations are quite related to this one issue, since it provides a snippet of code which aims to demonstrate exactly what I’ll eventually or possibly need to do: make HTTPS requests to a secure web server.

In the meantime, if you’d care to expand a bit on that previous comment of yours, I’d greatly appreciate.