Fixing SSL for XAMPP installs

Posted by on April 24, 2009 Leave a comment (20) Go to comments

Recently I had to fix a bug/oversight in the xampp install that prevented ssl from being a registered stream socket transport, it turns out there are quite a lot of requests for help on this subject out there but few or no answers. I stumbled into this problem when I tried to setup SSL encrypted email by way of google’s SMTP servers and if by putting my solution here I help just one person then it is worth it.

The common error message that you will get when trying to do an SSL transport on a default XAMPP install is: “Unable to find the socket transport “ssl” – did you forget to enable it when you configured PHP?”
The solution it turns out is quite obvious, but maybe not so much when you are sleep deprived and multitasking, what you need to do is:

  1. Stop the Apache service
  2. Copy libeay32.dll and ssleay32.dll from your ..xampp/php folder to your ..xampp/apache/bin folder, overwriting the older files there
  3. Edit the ..xampp/apache/bin/php.ini and uncomment the “;extension=php_openssl.dll” (remove the semicolon at the start of the line)
  4. Start the Apache service

If you now check your phpinfo() page you will see Registered Stream Socket Transports: tcp, udp, ssl, sslv3, sslv2, tls and everything will now be working.

******EDIT*******

After updating to the latest version of xampp (1.7.7) it appears the problem still exists, the php.ini file to edit now exists in the ../xampp/php directory, you need to add “extension=php_openssl.dll” in there. No other steps are required (apart from the obvious restart of apache).

HowTo, server 2003, Tech adventures, troubleshooting, web
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20 Comments.

  1. robert August 9, 2009 at 8:34 am

    thank you for this article! :-) robert form berlin, germany

  2. GOD August 9, 2009 at 5:48 pm

    Thanks, I’m pleased to know I’ve helped someone.

  3. Mazidra October 4, 2009 at 4:09 am

    You helped me too !
    thanks

  4. Satheesh December 3, 2009 at 6:24 pm

    thanks a lot :)

  5. Andrew February 18, 2010 at 11:37 pm

    Well done! I was fooling around moving DLLs to various places for ages. Thanks for posting a clear, definitive answer.

  6. Rob March 26, 2010 at 2:56 am

    Not sure if this is because I’m using an newer version of XAMPP, but all I needed to do to use ssl (https://localhost/site.file.php) was add a security exception to firefox.

  7. Nash September 23, 2010 at 10:29 pm

    Thanks alot!! You’ve really help me there. I’ve spent a whole day trying to figure this out but this hacked it…

  8. Manoj Thomas January 3, 2011 at 6:23 am

    I encountered the same error running WAMP. Your instructions worked perfectly – thanks!

  9. Stefen Hunt January 7, 2011 at 8:01 am

    Thanks a lot!! You are a life saver

  10. Prasenjit Seth February 1, 2011 at 3:48 pm

    Many many thanks!!!!
    It helps me a lot………..

  11. Steve Rozic March 2, 2011 at 12:27 am

    This article is brilliant and did the trick (I was using WAMP, but the procedure is identical).

    Thanks for sharing/posting this information…

  12. Dinesh October 13, 2011 at 12:16 am

    Thats cool………
    Thanks Mate.

  13. John Smtih October 27, 2011 at 4:05 am

    Thank you! This helped me so much!

    Keep up the good work :D

  14. Ken December 30, 2011 at 12:30 pm

    This problem caused me a lot of grief. Thanks for posting the solution!

  15. Simon January 4, 2012 at 12:42 am

    Thanks from Slovakia! You have helped me a lot!

  16. tamana January 11, 2012 at 4:07 pm

    Hello.. I don’t have any php.ini in bin folder .. i have in /php folder so now what changes in which file is required…

  17. GOD January 28, 2012 at 10:54 pm

    After updating to the latest version of xampp (1.7.7) it appears the problem still exists, the php.ini file to edit now exists in the ../xampp/php directory, you need to add “extension=php_openssl.dll” in there. No other steps are required (apart from the obvious restart of apache).

  18. Jagannath Samanta April 6, 2012 at 9:53 pm

    Its working well. Thanks you. But I want to say something the in the third step xampp/apache/bin/php.ini the path will be xampp/php/php.ini

    Thanks again. :)

  19. GOD April 6, 2012 at 10:51 pm

    Jagannath Samanta
    thanks for the comment, but you should have read the original post. It was updated at the start of the year to include the new directory location. Also, the comment I made upon discovering XAMPP’s directory changes is directly above yours and contains the exact same information :)

  20. vintesh April 21, 2012 at 1:36 am

    this is the solution that i need. thanks man. from my bottom of the heart

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