Blockchain security using SSL to connect to live localhost node

Question

Hi, please pardon the newbie-ish question.

I have two question re SSL connectivity.

1) I have noted that peer-to-peer does currently not support SSL from a couple of other posts. Is this going to be addressed in the 1.~ versions or will it possible be a 2.` feature?

I have successfully created a PHP application which has no problems use CURL with 'http' but seems to fail when I try to connect using 'https'. The site itself has SSL access enabled, however I thought it would be nice to use SSL to connect to the localhost (127.0.0.1) as well.

I have added the CURL SSL exceptions which I would normally use when connecting CURL to SSL but it makes no difference.

My analysis is that there is no SSL support activated by default as I cannot see any extra ports on the server that are listening to an alternative port. I also cant find any documentation references to connect to a local Node using CURL SSL.

2) Even though it may be overkill, is localhost SSL connectivity something that is planned for the future?

I was also very interested in the question relating to patents.

https://www.multichain.com/qa/3442/patent-trolls-and-bitcoin-blockchain-patents?show=3442#q3442

Has there been any further discussion on this subject? (yes it is third question)

If you knew how expensive legal advice is in Australia you could understand my concern for a micro budget startup...

Thanks in advance for any and all responses..

Gilbert R...

Answer 1

First, securing the peer-to-peer connections is certainly part of the roadmap. I don't yet have a firm version number for you but we're aware of the need for this.

When you say "localhost SSL connectivity" do you mean SSL for the JSON-RPC API? If so then this is already supported, but it's not yet documented on our site. See this question:

https://www.multichain.com/qa/3013/https-for-json-rpc

Comments

Hi, the explanation regarding my use of CURL was actually a precursor to the 2nd question, hence i was inquiring about using SSL with CURL to connect from the PHP application to the local Node...

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Yes, this is possible. Please follow the link included in the answer.