nodejs https Error: socket hang up with localhost

Question

I have this small code snippet that targets an endpoint hosted on localhost

var https = require('https');

var options = {
  hostname: 'localhost',
  port: 443,
  path: '/',
  method: 'GET',
  agent: false
};

var req = https.request(options, function(res) {
  console.log("statusCode: ", res.statusCode);
  console.log("headers: ", res.headers);
  res.on('data', function(d) {
    process.stdout.write(d);
  });
});
req.end();

req.on('error', function(e) {
  console.error(e);
});

and I always get the error:

{ [Error: socket hang up] code: 'ECONNRESET', sslError: undefined }

It seems that the request is not even received by the endpoint because the it's not captured by it and there is no timeout happening.

If I try a request like https:// localhost from the browser, it's sent successfully.

If I just change the host in the code to something like encrypted.google.com, it works successfully as well.

Anyone knows why this might happen ?

Edit: I've also tried adding the same headers sent by the browser like accept, user-agent .. etc, but still not working

Edit2: this is the stack trace that appeared when I logged it:

Error: socket hang up
at SecurePair.error (tls.js:1013:23)
at EncryptedStream.CryptoStream._done (tls.js:705:22)
at CleartextStream.read [as _read] (tls.js:496:24)
at CleartextStream.Readable.read (_stream_readable.js:320:10)
at EncryptedStream.onCryptoStreamFinish (tls.js:301:47)
at EncryptedStream.g (events.js:180:16)
at EncryptedStream.EventEmitter.emit (events.js:117:20)
at finishMaybe (_stream_writable.js:360:12)
at endWritable (_stream_writable.js:367:3)
at EncryptedStream.Writable.end (_stream_writable.js:345:5)

Solution

ECONNRESET means the TCP connection was closed unexpectedly, ie. somewhere mid protocol.

But the code you wrote seems OK to me.

Maybe you are running into this issue https://github.com/joyent/node/issues/5360

TL;DR: You could try with latest node version and secureOptions: constants.SSL_OP_NO_TLSv1_2 added to your options.

UPDATE SSLv3 is broken, https://access.redhat.com/articles/1232123 ; maybe ditch ISS?

Comments

[nomier]

I'm using the latest node version v0.10.26 and I tried the "secureOptions: constants.SSL_OP_NO_TLSv1_2", but I still get the same error. Can the problem be related to how the host is being resolved or related to a certain firewall, the endpoint is ipv4, is there a way to make sure that the host is being resolved correctly ?

[wires]

re: host, I'm not entirely sure, I doubt it.

[wires]

Maybe secureProtocol: 'SSLv3_method' can work for you. What webserver are you using? Also a trace of curl -v https://localhost would be useful. Also, is it a self signed certificate?

[nomier]

Ok, so it worked fine with secureProtocol: 'SSLv3_method' what did that actually do ? :) also that's only in case of agent: false, if I set any value to the agent, the error comes back, do you know why is that. Just as an info: the hebserver is IIS and curl is working fine and the certificate is self signed.

[wires]

AFAIK, that 'forces' SSL version 3. I'm tempted to say ISS is your problem, but I have never touched it with a stick even :-P. With self signed certificates you are likely to need rejectUnauthorized: false and optionally strictSSL: false. I'm not exactly sure what the (security) implications are of that.

[nomier]

I already tried rejectUnauthorized: false, it doesn't solve the issue, anyway, thanks for the help, at least I got it to work :)