Receiving "SSL_connect returned=1 errno=0 state=SSLv3 read server hello A: sslv3 alert handshake failure" with openshift nodejs app

Question

I have a nodejs app on openshift, and we use the rhc port-forward command to connect to our database when we develop locally.

We have implemented passport to authenticate users through google and through facebook. I have authenticated my self, and we could still use the rhc commands. My partner has recently authenticated himself through facebook, and shortly after that (~1 week), we got this error thrown our way. Dont know if that is entirely relevant, but it couldn't hurt to include.

Connection to openshift.redhat.com failed: A secure connection could not be established to the   server
(SSL_connect returned=1 errno=0 state=SSLv3 read server hello A: sslv3 alert handshake failure). You may
disable secure connections to your server with the -k (or --insecure) option
'https://openshift.redhat.com/broker/rest/api'.

If your server is using a self-signed certificate, you may disable certificate checks with the -k (or
--insecure) option. Using this option means that your data is potentially visible to third parties.

Any ideas on how to resolve this? I have seen this error on other stack questions, but every question I saw, the people posing the question were using ruby.

Amarillo

Perhaps this has to do with POODLE and the disabling of SSLv3 on the server-side. You might try forcing TLS 1.x when connecting to the server. – Pileum

Answer 1

This is likely a result of the POODLE SSLv3 debacle. You can fix it by updating the httpclient ruby gem. At the command line type:

sudo gem update httpclient

Or you can also fix it by adding the following to your .openshift/express.conf file:

ssl_version=tlsv1

Both of these fixes essentially tell your app to use TLSv1 instead of SSLv3.

Average

"sudo gem install httpclient" is not work for me. I got "An unexpected error occured: undefined method `[]' for nil:NilClass" instead. "gem update rhc" fixed. – Whooper

This did not work for me, either, but gem update rhc did (see my comment to the answer below). It updated rhc, and also updated httpclient to httpclient-2.5.3.3. Did you mean update instead of install, or are the cases where install will suffice? – Enemy

@JohnSchmidt, install works if you are using a new gemset or something but most of all I believe update should be used. You could also use install with the -v option if you don't want to update to the latest version but to a specific version you know will work. – Kaolin

My answer worked for me but it looks like the answer below using "gem update rhc" was more widely useful so although this is ancient and not a problem anymore I'd recommend that answer first probably – Average

Answer 2

The rhc gem has been updated, please run gem update rhc and you will get the newest fixed version.

Whooper

This also worked for me, beautifully. update worked where every iteration of install, or uninstall followed by install, etc. failed. It updated rhc to rhc-1.32.2 and httpclient to httpclient-2.5.3.3. So where install doesn't work, try update. I don't know enough about the rubygems system to know why update would succeed when a fresh install doesn't, but that was my experience, in this instance at least. – Enemy

Answer 3

I had the same issue on Windows with ruby 1.9.3 and httpclient 2.3.4.1

gem update httpclient updated the same to 2.5.3.3 and thus fixed the issue.

Borrow