NAME

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

SYNOPSIS

  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;                                                       

DESCRIPTION

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;
    ... 

USING EXISTING SOCKETS

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 $host and $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.

EXPORT

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.

EXAMPLES

  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; 

TODO

Better error handling. Callback routine?

CAVEATS

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.

CHANGES

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

KNOWN BUGS

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.

AUTHOR

Jim Bowlin jbowlin@linklint.org

SEE ALSO

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