Ssl/Qsslsocket_Openssl.Cpp:1414: Error: Q_Ssl_Ctrl Was Not Declared in This Scope Error

Using Boost-Beast (Asio) http client with SSL (HTTPS)

Even though I commented out the line where it calls the root certificate funtion, "load_root_certificates(ctx);"

In that case, openssl uses the systemwide default certificate store (e.g. on linux /etc/ssl/certs), so the "usual" authorities will be trusted (just like e.g. your browser does).

1) Did the Beast library get the certificate from "exampleserver.com" or did I already have it installed and thats why it worked?

Yes.

If so what happens when it expires?

It will fail to verify. Test it, if you want: https://expired.badssl.com/

That site has many excellent SSL tests (https://badssl.com)

The certificate says "DigiCert Global Root CA -> DigiCert SHA2 Secure Server CA" is that a standard certificate maybe that comes with the browser?

The browser's trusted certificates aren't relevant (you're not using the browser). However, you can see openssl's (see above), or you can test using something like

openssl s_client  -connect exampleserver.com:443 -verify -showcerts 

Which prints something similar to

verify depth is 0
CONNECTED(00000003)
depth=3 C = SE, O = AddTrust AB, OU = AddTrust External TTP Network, CN = AddTrust External CA Root
verify return:1
depth=2 C = GB, ST = Greater Manchester, L = Salford, O = COMODO CA Limited, CN = COMODO RSA Certification Authority
verify return:1
depth=1 C = US, ST = TX, L = Houston, O = "cPanel, Inc.", CN = "cPanel, Inc. Certification Authority"
verify return:1
depth=0 CN = tradingfleet.com
verify return:1
---
Certificate chain
 0 s:/CN=tradingfleet.com
   i:/C=US/ST=TX/L=Houston/O=cPanel, Inc./CN=cPanel, Inc. Certification Authority
 1 s:/C=US/ST=TX/L=Houston/O=cPanel, Inc./CN=cPanel, Inc. Certification Authority
   i:/C=GB/ST=Greater Manchester/L=Salford/O=COMODO CA Limited/CN=COMODO RSA Certification Authority
 2 s:/C=GB/ST=Greater Manchester/L=Salford/O=COMODO CA Limited/CN=COMODO RSA Certification Authority
   i:/C=SE/O=AddTrust AB/OU=AddTrust External TTP Network/CN=AddTrust External CA Root
---
Server certificate
-----BEGIN CERTIFICATE-----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-----END CERTIFICATE-----
subject=/CN=tradingfleet.com
issuer=/C=US/ST=TX/L=Houston/O=cPanel, Inc./CN=cPanel, Inc. Certification Authority
---
No client certificate CA names sent
Peer signing digest: SHA512
Server Temp Key: ECDH, P-256, 256 bits
---
SSL handshake has read 4988 bytes and written 431 bytes
---
New, TLSv1/SSLv3, Cipher is ECDHE-RSA-AES256-GCM-SHA384
Server public key is 2048 bit
Secure Renegotiation IS supported
Compression: NONE
Expansion: NONE
No ALPN negotiated
SSL-Session:
    Protocol  : TLSv1.2
    Cipher    : ECDHE-RSA-AES256-GCM-SHA384
    Session-ID: 24CB439538212A23E0391887F856E369858AB6864B25DA5F1FD618550C41EB92
    Session-ID-ctx: 
    Master-Key: 1B8A3028923478527196B429D10F3584C5FA5DE4175C834CBBEF9EB19013FBFE58E7668CED9C0877E15F4F214A61F80C
    Key-Arg   : None
    PSK identity: None
    PSK identity hint: None
    SRP username: None
    TLS session ticket lifetime hint: 300 (seconds)
    TLS session ticket:
    0000 - ca 83 5a 76 c2 51 7b c7-68 15 12 a7 cb c9 f5 35   ..Zv.Q{.h......5
    0010 - 0a dc c1 2a 90 fd 61 69-0a d9 89 09 f0 c4 b3 40   ...*..ai.......@
    0020 - 79 dc 97 8a c5 0d a1 67-85 5e b4 25 47 94 ed 23   y......g.^.%G..#
    0030 - 42 df b2 99 25 ec b1 fa-d7 3e 3e 24 37 ef 67 ef   B...%....>>$7.g.
    0040 - 56 f4 d2 57 cd 47 48 bd-d7 86 b1 2f b5 76 d6 db   V..W.GH..../.v..
    0050 - 12 9d 7a d3 94 b0 58 bf-c5 c4 3e 7d 05 98 75 1d   ..z...X...>}..u.
    0060 - 31 bc 9b 23 4f a7 ce 37-af 77 8a 96 89 20 20 64   1..#O..7.w...  d
    0070 - 3d bf de 25 b2 09 02 20-49 09 b5 57 a1 c3 75 ed   =..%... I..W..u.
    0080 - 97 ec 51 d2 46 f7 c6 b7-4a d8 b2 db 95 eb ac d6   ..Q.F...J.......
    0090 - be 76 14 80 ca 08 dc b7-b6 cb e9 c9 cc 8b 45 bd   .v............E.
    00a0 - d7 1d a7 88 9b a4 91 33-aa 23 fe 23 65 b8 e1 d9   .......3.#.#e...
    00b0 - 98 f6 55 1e 25 32 97 b5-22 ac d0 58 01 a6 42 60   ..U.%2.."..X..B`

    Start Time: 1522150150
    Timeout   : 300 (sec)
    Verify return code: 0 (ok)
---
^C

2) Did it just use plain http over port 443 (no SSL)? Don know if this is possible at all...

No it didn't.

It's possible only given a whacky server config, but usually if your server connects https from a browser, it will be impossible to connect plain:

• https://askubuntu.com/questions/860511/is-it-possible-to-set-same-port-work-with-http-and-https
• on whacky configs: Nodejs HTTP and HTTPS over same port

Expected type-specifier before 'QSslSocket' in QT Application

Ultimately, it did come down to my configuration. I completely removed all versions of Qt4 off my computersudo make uninstall (since I installed from a tarball instead of from the repository), I cleaned my configuration file using make confclean, I rebuilt the configuration using ./configure -openssl, then make and finally sudo make install. I think the issue before was that I had not cleaned my config file first. I had a version installed for embedded Linux and it is possible that I was applying the -openssl flag to that build since I had installed that later. For the record both #include <QtNetwork/QSslSocket> and #include <QSslSocket> work, at least in my version of Qt (4.8.6).

Received fatal alert: handshake_failure through SSLHandshakeException

The handshake failure could have occurred due to various reasons:

• Incompatible cipher suites in use by the client and the server. This would require the client to use (or enable) a cipher suite that is supported by the server.
• Incompatible versions of SSL in use (the server might accept only TLS v1, while the client is capable of only using SSL v3). Again, the client might have to ensure that it uses a compatible version of the SSL/TLS protocol.
• Incomplete trust path for the server certificate; the server's certificate is probably not trusted by the client. This would usually result in a more verbose error, but it is quite possible. Usually the fix is to import the server's CA certificate into the client's trust store.
• The cerificate is issued for a different domain. Again, this would have resulted in a more verbose message, but I'll state the fix here in case this is the cause. The resolution in this case would be get the server (it does not appear to be yours) to use the correct certificate.

Since, the underlying failure cannot be pinpointed, it is better to switch on the -Djavax.net.debug=all flag to enable debugging of the SSL connection established. With the debug switched on, you can pinpoint what activity in the handshake has failed.

Update

Based on the details now available, it appears that the problem is due to an incomplete certificate trust path between the certificate issued to the server, and a root CA. In most cases, this is because the root CA's certificate is absent in the trust store, leading to the situation where a certificate trust path cannot exist; the certificate is essentially untrusted by the client. Browsers can present a warning so that users may ignore this, but the same is not the case for SSL clients (like the HttpsURLConnection class, or any HTTP Client library like Apache HttpComponents Client).

Most these client classes/libraries would rely on the trust store used by the JVM for certificate validation. In most cases, this will be the cacerts file in the JRE_HOME/lib/security directory. If the location of the trust store has been specified using the JVM system property javax.net.ssl.trustStore, then the store in that path is usually the one used by the client library. If you are in doubt, take a look at your Merchant class, and figure out the class/library it is using to make the connection.

Adding the server's certificate issuing CA to this trust store ought to resolve the problem. You can refer to my answer on a related question on getting tools for this purpose, but the Java keytool utility is sufficient for this purpose.

Warning: The trust store is essentially the list of all CAs that you trust. If you put in an certificate that does not belong to a CA that you do not trust, then SSL/TLS connections to sites having certificates issued by that entity can be decrypted if the private key is available.

Update #2: Understanding the output of the JSSE trace

The keystore and the truststores used by the JVM are usually listed at the very beginning, somewhat like the following:

keyStore is : 
keyStore type is : jks
keyStore provider is : 
init keystore
init keymanager of type SunX509
trustStore is: C:\Java\jdk1.6.0_21\jre\lib\security\cacerts
trustStore type is : jks
trustStore provider is : 

If the wrong truststore is used, then you'll need to re-import the server's certificate to the right one, or reconfigure the server to use the one listed (not recommended if you have multiple JVMs, and all of them are used for different needs).

If you want to verify if the list of trust certs contains the required certs, then there is a section for the same, that starts as:

adding as trusted cert:
  Subject: CN=blah, O=blah, C=blah
  Issuer:  CN=biggerblah, O=biggerblah, C=biggerblah
  Algorithm: RSA; Serial number: yadda
  Valid from SomeDate until SomeDate

You'll need to look for if the server's CA is a subject.

The handshake process will have a few salient entries (you'll need to know SSL to understand them in detail, but for the purpose of debugging the current problem, it will suffice to know that a handshake_failure is usually reported in the ServerHello.

1. ClientHello

A series of entries will be reported when the connection is being initialized. The first message sent by the client in a SSL/TLS connection setup is the ClientHello message, usually reported in the logs as:

*** ClientHello, TLSv1
RandomCookie:  GMT: 1291302508 bytes = { some byte array }
Session ID:  {}
Cipher Suites: [SSL_RSA_WITH_RC4_128_MD5, SSL_RSA_WITH_RC4_128_SHA, TLS_RSA_WITH_AES_128_CBC_SHA, TLS_DHE_RSA_WITH_AES_128_CBC_SHA, TLS_DHE_DSS_WITH_AES_128_CBC_SHA, SSL_RSA_WITH_3DES_EDE_CBC_SHA, SSL_DHE_RSA_WITH_3DES_EDE_CBC_SHA, SSL_DHE_DSS_WITH_3DES_EDE_CBC_SHA, SSL_RSA_WITH_DES_CBC_SHA, SSL_DHE_RSA_WITH_DES_CBC_SHA, SSL_DHE_DSS_WITH_DES_CBC_SHA, SSL_RSA_EXPORT_WITH_RC4_40_MD5, SSL_RSA_EXPORT_WITH_DES40_CBC_SHA, SSL_DHE_RSA_EXPORT_WITH_DES40_CBC_SHA, SSL_DHE_DSS_EXPORT_WITH_DES40_CBC_SHA]
Compression Methods:  { 0 }
***

Note the cipher suites used. This might have to agree with the entry in your merchant.properties file, for the same convention might be employed by the bank's library. If the convention used is different, there is no cause of worry, for the ServerHello will state so, if the cipher suite is incompatible.

2. ServerHello

The server responds with a ServerHello, that will indicate if the connection setup can proceed. Entries in the logs are usually of the following type:

*** ServerHello, TLSv1
RandomCookie:  GMT: 1291302499 bytes = { some byte array}
Cipher Suite: SSL_RSA_WITH_RC4_128_SHA
Compression Method: 0
***

Note the cipher suite that it has chosen; this is best suite available to both the server and the client. Usually the cipher suite is not specified if there is an error. The certificate of the server (and optionally the entire chain) is sent by the server, and would be found in the entries as:

*** Certificate chain
chain [0] = [
[
  Version: V3
  Subject: CN=server, O=server's org, L=server's location, ST =Server's state, C=Server's country
  Signature Algorithm: SHA1withRSA, OID = some identifer

.... the rest of the certificate
***

If the verification of the certificate has succeeded, you'll find an entry similar to:

Found trusted certificate:
[
[
  Version: V1
  Subject: OU=Server's CA, O="Server's CA's company name", C=CA's country
  Signature Algorithm: SHA1withRSA, OID = some identifier

One of the above steps would not have succeeded, resulting in the handshake_failure, for the handshake is typically complete at this stage (not really, but the subsequent stages of the handshake typically do not cause a handshake failure). You'll need to figure out which step has failed, and post the appropriate message as an update to the question (unless you've already understood the message, and you know what to do to resolve it).

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