zazzybob.com

It’s easy to telnet to port 80 on a “standard” non-SSL webserver, and issue a GET / in order to verify that the webserver is responding correctly. But how to do it over SSL? Just use the s_client command via the openssl tool

# openssl s_client -connect www.example.com:443

You’ll see details of the certificate chain displayed (as well as any errors), and you can then issue your GET / to test the webservers operation.

You can also use this tool to test other SSL-enabled services (such as IMAPS/POP3S).

Cheers,
Kevin