Why I am obtaining this "SSL certificate problems: unable to get local issuer certificate" error validating a reCAPTCHA?

Question

I am pretty new in PHP and moreover in Laravel and I have the following strange problem.

I have developed witha registration form containing a Google reCAPTCHA field, something like this:

<form method="post" action="/registration">

    ...............................................................
    ...............................................................
    ...............................................................

    <div class="form-group">
        <label>Captcha</label>
        <div class="input-group">
            {!! app('captcha')->display(); !!}
        </div>
    </div>

    {{csrf_field()}}

    <button type="submit" class="btn btn-default">Submit</button>

</form>

So this field shoe the classic "I am not a robot" checkbox.

If I have only to check this checkbox I have no problem when the form is submitted to the controller handling the /registration resource.

This is the controller method (with the related input form validator) that hande this request and that validate the form input:

public function store(Request $request) {

    Log::info('store() START');

    $data = Input::all();

    Log::info('INSERTED DATA: '.implode("|", $data));

    $rules = array(
        'name' => 'required',
        'surname' => 'required',
        'login' => 'required',
        'email' => 'required|email|confirmed',
        //'email_confirmation' => 'required|email|confirmed',
        'pass' => 'required|required',
        //'passConfirm' => 'required',
        'g-recaptcha-response' => 'required|captcha',

    );

    $validator = Validator::make($data, $rules);

    if ($validator->fails()){
        return Redirect::to('/registration')->withInput()->withErrors($validator);
    }
    else{
        // Do your stuff.
    }
}

If instead is opened the popup asking to chose some specific images, when I submit the form I obtain the following error message:

RequestException in CurlFactory.php line 187:
cURL error 60: SSL certificate problem: unable to get local issuer certificate (see http://curl.haxx.se/libcurl/c/libcurl-errors.html)

in CurlFactory.php line 187
at CurlFactory::createRejection(object(EasyHandle), array('errno' => 60, 'error' => 'SSL certificate problem: unable to get local issuer certificate', 'url' => 'https://www.google.com/recaptcha/api/siteverify', 'content_type' => null, 'http_code' => 0, 'header_size' => 0, 'request_size' => 0, 'filetime' => -1, 'ssl_verify_result' => 20, 'redirect_count' => 0, 'total_time' => 0.079000000000000001, 'namelookup_time' => 0.016, 'connect_time' => 0.032000000000000001, 'pretransfer_time' => 0, 'size_upload' => 0, 'size_download' => 0, 'speed_download' => 0, 'speed_upload' => 0, 'download_content_length' => -1, 'upload_content_length' => -1, 'starttransfer_time' => 0, 'redirect_time' => 0, 'redirect_url' => '', 'primary_ip' => '216.58.212.132', 'certinfo' => array(), 'primary_port' => 443, 'local_ip' => '168.202.22.52', 'local_port' => 50542)) in CurlFactory.php line 150

It enter into the previous store(Request $request) controller method. I think that the problem is related to this validation setting:

'g-recaptcha-response' => 'required|captcha'

because I think that it automatially does a call toward the Google Server to check the captcha (infact in the previous error message it specify this IP that should be related to Google: 216.58.212.132).

So, searching online I found something like this related to this kind of error:

https://laracasts.com/discuss/channels/general-discussion/curl-error-60-ssl-certificate-problem-unable-to-get-local-issuer-certificate

that basically speack abot a cacert.pem file that have to be setted into Apache.

It sasy something like this:

I had the exact same but on Windows & xampp. My solution was as simple as: Follow this link: http://curl.haxx.se/ca/cacert.pem Copy the entire page and save it in a: "cacert.pem"

Then in your php.ini file insert or edit the following line: curl.cainfo = "[pathtothisfile]\cacert.pem"

Problem solved

So from what I have understand thi file (https://curl.haxx.se/ca/cacert-2017-01-18.pem) is a bundle of CA certificates that you use to verify that the server is really the correct site you're talking to.

So the fact that I have not setted this file into my Apache could be the cause of my problem?

If ys what have I to do exactly to set it? I have not undertand what have I to do with this downloaded file.

Answer 1

Solved by myself, this is THE problem explaination and solution ;-)

http://ourcodeworld.com/articles/read/196/xampp-wampp-php-ssl-certificate-error-unable-to-get-local-issuer-certificate