Accessing website (untrusted SSL / HTTPS) using urlread

Hi.

I have been trying to access a website and log in using urlread. I keep getting error messages such as

Error using urlreadwrite (line 100)
Error downloading URL. Your network connection may be down or your proxy settings
improperly configured.

Here is my code:

url = 'https://oflxd21.dwd.de/cgi-bin/spp1167/webservice.cgi';
s = urlread(url,'Authentication','Basic','Username','***','Password','****');

I have tried the following solutions, to no avail:

• Added the website's SSL certificate as trusted to MATLAB's JRE's keystore
• Added the website's SSL certificate as trusted in the JAVA control panel
• attempted access with urlread2 & urlread_auth from Stackexchange
• attempted the following line:

s = urlread(url,'post',{'myusername','mypassword'})

which returns the error "could not post to url"

urlread2 returns the error:

Java exception occurred:
javax.net.ssl.SSLHandshakeException: java.security.cert.CertificateException: No
subject alternative DNS name matching oflxd21.dwd.de found.

• tried adding the line

urlConnection.setRequestProperty('User-Agent','Mozilla 5.0');

to the function urlreadwrite.m

• tried with firewall turned off

I feel like I am running out of options. Does anyone have any more ideas of what I could try out? My PC is connected to a university network (eduroam). I doubt that I need to add a proxy (it is disabled in preferences). I am pretty sure it has something to do with the SSL certificate being untrusted.

EDIT: I have just found out that the certificate's address is mismatched

Thanks!

- Marc

[Marc Jakobi]

I have run another test and the line

inputStream = urlConnection.getInputStream;

in urlreadwrite returns the following error:

Java exception occurred:
javax.net.ssl.SSLHandshakeException: java.security.cert.CertificateException: No
subject alternative DNS name matching oflxd21.dwd.de found.

...

Caused by: javax.net.ssl.SSLHandshakeException:
java.security.cert.CertificateException: No subject alternative DNS name matching
oflxd21.dwd.de found.

...

Answer 1

[Marc Jakobi]

I give up. I have decided to use cURL via the function

system('curl -k https://oflxd21.dwd.de/...')

with the option -k, and by retrieving the necessary POST commands from FireBug. It works fine now.

[Yimin Chen]

Did you succeed in using MATLAB accesses the SSL webpage?

[Marc Jakobi]

Hi. Sorry for the late reply. No, I just ended up using cURL. It got what I needed done and so I never tried any other solution after that.

[Arda Aksu]

For those who dont know how to install curl as a system app;

1) download the executable

https://curl.haxx.se/dlwiz/?type=bin&os=Win32&flav=-&ver=*

2) extract to any folder you want

3) then you can use the dos command within matlab like this;

[status,result]=dos('"C:\Arda Aksu\curl\bin\curl" https://www.google.com');

...

As you can see "https" links also work while urlread fails. If you use -o option, you can use curl instead of urlwrite as well. See detailed manual at curl website for more information.

...

By the way, Marc thank you for pointing the right direction.

[Marc Jakobi]

Cheers for the additional input.