This is probably not what you are looking for

Understandably, given that the name of the repository is https-example, I believe that a lot of people are coming here expecting to find an example of how to write an https server and/or client using libevent and OpenSSL.

Instead, this was something I threw together in 2013 as an example of a problem I was having when writing an https client and server using libevent and OpenSSL. I only posted it so I could discuss it on the libevent mailing list. I've kept it up in case it is useful to someone reading the mailing list archives, and because a number of people have starred or forked the repository.

If you're looking for an https client using libevent and OpenSSL, I would recommend checking out the example that comes with libevent. If you're looking for an https server using libevent and OpenSSL, I don't know of one to recommend. You might want to try asking on the libevent mailing list.

If you still want to look at the code in this repository, beware that the client and server are written to work together. The server only responds to a particular POST request generated by the client. (This is because this example is a simplified version of some programs I was writing at the time.) So if you want a general-purpose server, you'll need to modify it to respond to GET requests, at the very least.

Original README

ppelletier@chives:~/src/https-example$ uname -a
Linux chives 2.6.32-34-generic #77-Ubuntu SMP Tue Sep 13 19:39:17 UTC 2011 x86_64 GNU/Linux

start the server:

ppelletier@chives:~/src/https-example$ ./https-server
Using OpenSSL version "OpenSSL 1.0.1c 10 May 2012"
and libevent version "2.1.2-alpha-dev"
Loading certificate chain from 'server-certificate-chain.pem'
and private key from 'server-private-key.pem'
Listening on 0.0.0.0:8421

run the client... it works!

ppelletier@chives:~/src/https-example$ ./https-client
Using OpenSSL version "OpenSSL 1.0.1c 10 May 2012"
and libevent version "2.1.2-alpha-dev"
https server 'localhost' has this certificate, which looks good to me:
/C=US/ST=CA/L=Los Angeles/O=Oblong Industries/OU=Plasma/CN=localhost
server said: Hi 127.0.0.1!  I liked your passcode.

do the same thing with curl instead of with the client:

ppelletier@chives:~/src/https-example$ curl -k -d 'passcode=R23' https://localhost:8421/
Hi 127.0.0.1!  I liked your passcode.

Now, change the "#if 1" on line 214 of https-client.c to "#if 0", to
get rid of the special hack that turns "localhost" into "127.0.0.1",
in order to avoid IPv6.  Here's what happens:

ppelletier@chives:~/src/https-example$ ./https-client
Using OpenSSL version "OpenSSL 1.0.1c 10 May 2012"
and libevent version "2.1.2-alpha-dev"
code=0  POST failed
server said:

Next, change the "#if 0" on line 100 of https-client.c to "#if 1", to
enable retries:

ppelletier@chives:~/src/https-example$ ./https-client
Using OpenSSL version "OpenSSL 1.0.1c 10 May 2012"
and libevent version "2.1.2-alpha-dev"
[warn] Epoll ADD(1) on fd 7 failed.  Old events were 0; read change was 1 (add); write change was 0 (none): Bad file descriptor
[warn] Epoll ADD(4) on fd 7 failed.  Old events were 0; read change was 0 (none); write change was 1 (add): Bad file descriptor
code=0  POST failed
socket error = Bad file descriptor (9)
server said: (null)