PERL_LWP_SSL_VERIFY_HOSTNAME setting to 0 is not working - perl

Question

Am running into an issue connecting on a Ubuntu machine while my other machine works fine. The difference between both is the Ubuntu version and the SSLeay version but i can't narrow down what the issue is.
I already did the following:
a) add the environment variable: PERL_LWP_SSL_VERIFY_HOSTNAME with a value of 0
b) add the $ENV{PERL_LWP_SSL_VERIFY_HOSTNAME} = 0; to the VICommon.pm file
Both the above ones didn't work. I can't figure out why it doesn't work on my second machine.
Ubuntu 12.10 (Works)
$perl /usr/lib/vmware-vcli/apps/general/connect.pl --url https:///sdk/webService --username --password
Connection Successful
Server Time : 2013-07-19T22:11:31.681181Z
$ perl -v
This is perl 5, version 14, subversion 2 (v5.14.2) built for x86_64-linux-gnu-thread-multi
$ perl -MLWP -e 'print "LWP Version: $LWP::VERSION\n"'
LWP Version: 6.04
$ perl -MCrypt::SSLeay -e 'print "Crypt::SSLeay Version: $Crypt::SSLeay::VERSION\n"'
Crypt::SSLeay Version: 0.58
Ubuntu 13.04 (Doesn't work)
$perl /usr/lib/vmware-vcli/apps/general/connect.pl --url https:///sdk/webService --username --password
Server version unavailable at 'https:///sdk/vimService.wsdl' at /usr/share/perl/5.14/VMware/VICommon.pm line 548.
$ perl -v
This is perl 5, version 14, subversion 2 (v5.14.2) built for x86_64-linux-gnu-thread-multi
$ perl -MLWP -e 'print "LWP Version: $LWP::VERSION\n"'
LWP Version: 6.04
$ perl -MCrypt::SSLeay -e 'print "Crypt::SSLeay Version: $Crypt::SSLeay::VERSION\n"'
Crypt::SSLeay Version: 0.64
Certificate error (same in both machines)
lwp-request https:///sdk/webService
Can't connect to :443 (certificate verify failed)
LWP::Protocol::https::Socket: SSL connect attempt failed with unknown error error:14090086:SSL routines:SSL3_GET_SERVER_CERTIFICATE:certificate verify failed at /usr/share/perl5/LWP/Protocol/http.pm line 51.
UPDATE 1
Looks like the issue has nothing to do with the Ubuntu version but the new packages i get when i do 'apt-get upgrade', on the 12.10 box i didn't do that and it was working. However on 13.04 i ended up doing all the updates. Now since i get more than 80 updates when i did i still haven't narrowed down to the library which is messing it up. When i installed a new 13.04 image it works fine.
** Update 2 **
Looks like the base Ubuntu 12.10 or 13.04 work fine. If you get the latest updates then it stops working. So not sure yet which library is causing the problem.

Answer 1

I have had the very same problem - I solved it by typing "use Net::SSL;" before the requests.
Also tried to find out what library is causing the problem because it's definately an upgraded module that is causing it. Most sites were okay though, but one site's certificate wouldn't validate.

Answer 2

Rather than using use Net::SSL; soon in your code, you can achieve more predictable behavior with:
$ENV{PERL_NET_HTTPS_SSL_SOCKET_CLASS} = 'Net::SSL';
And now PERL_LWP_SSL_VERIFY_HOSTNAME set to zero will work as expected. But changing the underlying implementation module should not be considered as solution, but a hack.

Answer 3

It also can depend on the version of Net::HTTPS, and on whether or not IO::Socket::SSL is installed. Net::HTTPS will prefer IO::Socket::SSL (which uses Net::SSLeay) over Net::SSL (which uses Crypt::SSL). More recent versions of Net::HTTPS have improved how it works with IO::Socket::SSL.

Answer 4

You can try to add Global ENV variable or set in via Apache config (if you're using Apache)
SetEnv PERL_LWP_SSL_VERIFY_HOSTNAME 0
or
$ENV{'PERL_LWP_SSL_VERIFY_HOSTNAME'} = 0;

Answer 5

Setting the PERL_LWP_SSL_VERIFY_HOSTNAME env var to 0 will disable important security checks.
Upgrading the relevant modules to the latest version (as of November 2014) fixed the problem for me.
(In my case I updated to these distributions: Crypt-SSLeay-0.72, Net-HTTP-6.07, libwww-perl-6.08 LWP-Protocol-https-6.06.)