require 'net/http'
require 'net/https'
http = Net::HTTP.new('www.google.com', 443)
http.use_ssl = true
http.get('/mail')
"warning: peer certificate won't be verified in this SSL session"
=<#net::httpfound 302="" found="" readbody="true">

Notice line 6? Not good as its really important to be able to verify SSL certificates on the web to make sure that you’re talking to who you think you’re talking to!

So to verify these certificates, download commercial certificate authorities used by Mozilla (Firefox) that have been kindly pre-packaged for you:

http://curl.haxx.se/docs/caextract.html

Store in a logical location:

/usr/share/ssl/cert.pem

Now, test out that they are working, try this code (IRB works well!):

require 'net/http'
require 'net/https'
http = Net::HTTP.new('www.google.com', 443)
http.ca_file = '/usr/share/ssl/cacert.pem'
http.use_ssl = true
http.get('/mail')
=<#net::httpfound 302="" found="" readbody="true">

Yah! No more warnings, we’re properly verify the server’s SSL certificate!

Tip: If you’re behind a proxy, then you’ll need to change the third step to be:

http = Net::HTTP::Proxy('myproxyserver', 8080).new('www.google.com', 443)

The above code creates a HTTP class with your proxy configuration baked in. Then you can create an instance from it, just like a regulard HTTP class!