How to use wget with ssl certificate

Question

I am using wget in my program to get some file using HTTP protocol. Here i need to set security so we moved HTTP protocol to HTTPS.

After changing to HTTPS how to perform wget. I mean how to make trusted connection between two machines then perform wget.

I want to make sure that wget can be performed from certain system only.

Answer 1

Step 1: SSL Certificates

First things first, if this machine is on the internet and the SSL certificate is signed by a trusted source, there is no need to specify a certificate.

However, if there is a self signed certificate involved things get a little more interesting.

For example:

• if this machine uses a self signed certificate, or
• if you are on a network with a proxy that re-encrypts all https connections

Then you need to trust the public key of the self signed certificate. You will need to export the public key as a .CER file. How you got the SSL certificate will determine how you get the public key as a .CER

Once you have the .CER then...

Step 2: Trust the Certificate

I suggest two options:

option one

wget --ca-certificate={the_cert_file_path} https://www.google.com

option two

set the option on ~/.wgetrc

ca_certificate={the_cert_file_path}

Additional resources

• Blog post about this wget and ssl certificates
• wget manual

Answer 2

macOS users can use the cert.pem file:

wget --ca-certificate=/etc/ssl/cert.pem

or set in your ~/.wgetrc:

ca_certificate = /etc/ssl/cert.pem