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Is anyone aware of any alternatives to curl and wget? The key functional requirement I'm looking for is to be able to execute an HTTPS GET request against a known URL.

The reason I'm looking for an alternative is simply that I'm trying to execute a connectivity test from a server which currently doesn't have wget or curl installed. The server concerned is under strict change control and so installing new software on it is a no-no.

The operating system installed on the server is AIX.

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    If it were only HTTP, I'd recommend writing your own request headers into a text file and using netcat. Not feasible with HTTPS, though. Any text-mode browsers available? (links/lynx/w3m) Feb 18, 2011 at 12:05
  • Now that I look, though: serverfault.com/questions/102032/… Feb 18, 2011 at 12:07
  • That looks like an answer to me, want to convert it to a proper answer so that you can get credit from it? I'll get our unix admin to give it a try! Feb 18, 2011 at 12:14
  • Lynx is available for Ubuntu 16.04: elinuxbook.com/…
    – SDsolar
    Oct 14, 2017 at 7:56

3 Answers 3

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[Pushing up from comments]

Two options:

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  • Unfortunately this didn't work for us because openssl wasn't installed either. We've now run out of time for this testing, so we're going to give up and go a different route. I think the answer is sound though, so accepting it. Feb 18, 2011 at 15:37
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If you can ssh into the server, I recommend this:

  1. Think of a random port, like 5555 that you will use on your local machine.
  2. Run ssh -L 5555:remote_server:443 username@aix_server
  3. Point your browser to https://localhost:5555/

Your browser will report an error that the certificate is not for localhost, but for the remote_server, but at least you would have proved that the connectivity works. You could also use openssl s_client -connect localhost:5555, as noted on other answers to verify more in detail the encrypted communication.

Good luck!

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Have you got Perl with LWP::Simple?

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  • Unfortunately not, no - the server is under change control as well, which prevents anything being installed (at least without going through due diligence and testing, and we didn't have time for that). Thanks anyway. Feb 18, 2011 at 15:39

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