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Testing HTTPS w/ Flask's development server using stunnel on Ubuntu

Date: 2012-10-17  |   Tags: python, ubuntu, webdev   |   2 Comments

Our website is served over HTTPS. To more easily test certain issues (e.g. mixed mode content warnings, or Mapquest SSL tile servers), I wanted to access my Flask local development server over HTTPS. These two articles describe how to do this using stunnel: Testing HTTPS with Django's Development Server, Django Development Server with HTTPS. Using stunnel, you can hit pages on your Django/Flask local dev server over HTTPS instead of HTTP. Here is how I installed it on Ubuntu Precise 12.04:

  • Install SSL development files 
    $ sudo apt-get install libssl-dev
  • Go to https://www.stunnel.org/downloads.html and download stunnel-4.54.tar.gz
  • Unpack, compile, install. 
    $ tar xvf stunnel-4.54.tar.gz 
$ cd stunnel-4.54 
$ ./configure --prefix=/home/saltycrane/lib/stunnel-4.54 
$ make 
$ make install
    NOTE: the make install step asked me a number of questions and created a certificate file at /home/saltycrane/lib/stunnel-4.54/etc/stunnel/stunnel.pem. Accept all the defaults for the certificate information (accurate certificate information isn't needed for this application).
  • Create a stunnel configuration file, /home/saltycrane/lib/stunnel-4.54/etc/stunnel/dev_https: 
    pid =
cert = /home/saltycrane/lib/stunnel-4.54/etc/stunnel/stunnel.pem
debug = 7
foreground = yes

[https]
accept = 7000
connect = 5000
  • Start stunnel: 
    $ /home/saltycrane/lib/stunnel-4.54/bin/stunnel /home/saltycrane/lib/stunnel-4.54/etc/stunnel/dev_https
2012.10.17 17:40:52 LOG7[12468:140357811214080]: Clients allowed=500
2012.10.17 17:40:52 LOG5[12468:140357811214080]: stunnel 4.54 on x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu platform
2012.10.17 17:40:52 LOG5[12468:140357811214080]: Compiled/running with OpenSSL 1.0.1 14 Mar 2012
2012.10.17 17:40:52 LOG5[12468:140357811214080]: Threading:PTHREAD SSL:+ENGINE+OCSP Auth:none Sockets:POLL+IPv6
2012.10.17 17:40:52 LOG5[12468:140357811214080]: Reading configuration from file /home/saltycrane/lib/stunnel-4.54/etc/stunnel/dev_https
2012.10.17 17:40:52 LOG7[12468:140357811214080]: Compression not enabled
2012.10.17 17:40:52 LOG7[12468:140357811214080]: Snagged 64 random bytes from /home/saltycrane/.rnd
2012.10.17 17:40:52 LOG7[12468:140357811214080]: Wrote 1024 new random bytes to /home/saltycrane/.rnd
2012.10.17 17:40:52 LOG7[12468:140357811214080]: PRNG seeded successfully
2012.10.17 17:40:52 LOG6[12468:140357811214080]: Initializing service [https]
2012.10.17 17:40:52 LOG7[12468:140357811214080]: Certificate: /home/saltycrane/lib/stunnel-4.54/etc/stunnel/stunnel.pem
2012.10.17 17:40:52 LOG7[12468:140357811214080]: Certificate loaded
2012.10.17 17:40:52 LOG7[12468:140357811214080]: Key file: /home/saltycrane/lib/stunnel-4.54/etc/stunnel/stunnel.pem
2012.10.17 17:40:52 LOG7[12468:140357811214080]: Private key loaded
2012.10.17 17:40:52 LOG7[12468:140357811214080]: Using DH parameters from /home/saltycrane/lib/stunnel-4.54/etc/stunnel/stunnel.pem
2012.10.17 17:40:52 LOG7[12468:140357811214080]: DH initialized with 1024-bit key
2012.10.17 17:40:52 LOG7[12468:140357811214080]: ECDH initialized with curve prime256v1
2012.10.17 17:40:52 LOG7[12468:140357811214080]: SSL options set: 0x00000004
2012.10.17 17:40:52 LOG5[12468:140357811214080]: Configuration successful
2012.10.17 17:40:52 LOG7[12468:140357811214080]: Service [https] (FD=7) bound to 0.0.0.0:7000
2012.10.17 17:40:52 LOG7[12468:140357811214080]: No pid file being created
  • Start the python dev server: 
    $ HTTPS=1 python bin/runserver.py 0.0.0.0 5000
  • Go to https://localhost:7000 in your browser

See also

2 Comments — feed icon Comments feed for this post


#1 doug commented on 2013-01-22:

another lucid, well-researched post. As an aside, i have landed on your blog perhaps a dozen times over the past few years--always the same way--i.e., following a link in my Google/Yahoo search results (for instance, code snippets to convert among the various date/time classes in Python) Each time, the Post in your Blog that i landed on was carefully written, easy to follow, and detailed enough to to have immediate practical utility. well done, and thanks.


#2 Eliot commented on 2013-01-23:

doug: Thank you for the thoughtful and specific comment. :) Probably Google doesn't lead you to my bad posts, but I'm happy to hear my blog has been helpful!

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