使用 Ubuntu 20.04 LTS 中的 R download.file(“https://..”) 时出现“SSL 连接错误”

Question

I am trying to obtain a zip from a https:// website:

url <- 'https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/tbl/csv/23100008-eng.zip'
file_path <- './data/mydata.zip'
download.file(url, file_path)

I also have tried changing the method to 'curl', 'libcurl and 'get'

I get:

trying URL 'https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/tbl/csv/23100008-eng.zip'
Error in download.file(url, file_path) : 
  cannot open URL 'https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/tbl/csv/23100008-eng.zip'
In addition: Warning message:
In download.file(url, file_path) :
  URL 'https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/tbl/csv/23100008-eng.zip': status was 'SSL connect error'

My sessionInfo()

R version 4.0.2 (2020-06-22)
Platform: x86_64-pc-linux-gnu (64-bit)
Running under: Ubuntu 20.04 LTS

Matrix products: default
BLAS:   /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/blas/libblas.so.3.9.0
LAPACK: /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/lapack/liblapack.so.3.9.0

locale:
 [1] LC_CTYPE=en_CA.UTF-8       LC_NUMERIC=C               LC_TIME=en_CA.UTF-8       
 [4] LC_COLLATE=en_CA.UTF-8     LC_MONETARY=en_CA.UTF-8    LC_MESSAGES=en_CA.UTF-8   
 [7] LC_PAPER=en_CA.UTF-8       LC_NAME=C                  LC_ADDRESS=C              
[10] LC_TELEPHONE=C             LC_MEASUREMENT=en_CA.UTF-8 LC_IDENTIFICATION=C       

attached base packages:
[1] stats     graphics  grDevices utils     datasets  methods   base     

loaded via a namespace (and not attached):
 [1] Rcpp_1.0.4.6     lubridate_1.7.9  crayon_1.3.4     dplyr_1.0.0     
 [5] R6_2.4.1         lifecycle_0.2.0  magrittr_1.5     pillar_1.4.4    
 [9] httr_1.4.1       stringi_1.4.6    rlang_0.4.6      rstudioapi_0.11 
[13] snakecase_0.11.0 vctrs_0.3.1      generics_0.0.2   ellipsis_0.3.1  
[17] tools_4.0.2      stringr_1.4.0    glue_1.4.1       purrr_0.3.4     
[21] janitor_2.0.1    compiler_4.0.2   pkgconfig_2.0.3  tidyselect_1.1.0
[25] tibble_3.0.1 

Oddly enough, the code runs perfectly in a Win OS but not in Ubuntu 20.04 LTS OS. I am not sure, but the issue seems to be a CA one which I have not been able to solve.

From my terminal:

openssl version -a
OpenSSL 1.1.1f  31 Mar 2020
built on: Mon Apr 20 11:53:50 2020 UTC
platform: debian-amd64
options:  bn(64,64) rc4(16x,int) des(int) blowfish(ptr) 
compiler: gcc -fPIC -pthread -m64 -Wa,--noexecstack -Wall -Wa,--noexecstack -g -O2 -fdebug-prefix-map=/build/openssl-P_ODHM/openssl-1.1.1f=. -fstack-protector-strong -Wformat -Werror=format-security -DOPENSSL_TLS_SECURITY_LEVEL=2 -DOPENSSL_USE_NODELETE -DL_ENDIAN -DOPENSSL_PIC -DOPENSSL_CPUID_OBJ -DOPENSSL_IA32_SSE2 -DOPENSSL_BN_ASM_MONT -DOPENSSL_BN_ASM_MONT5 -DOPENSSL_BN_ASM_GF2m -DSHA1_ASM -DSHA256_ASM -DSHA512_ASM -DKECCAK1600_ASM -DRC4_ASM -DMD5_ASM -DAESNI_ASM -DVPAES_ASM -DGHASH_ASM -DECP_NISTZ256_ASM -DX25519_ASM -DPOLY1305_ASM -DNDEBUG -Wdate-time -D_FORTIFY_SOURCE=2
OPENSSLDIR: "/usr/lib/ssl"
ENGINESDIR: "/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/engines-1.1"
Seeding source: os-specific

I tried using httr:

library(httr)
set_config(config(ssl_verifypeer = FALSE))
httr::GET("https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/tbl/csv/23100008-eng.zip")
Error in curl::curl_fetch_memory(url, handle = handle) : 
  error:1414D172:SSL routines:tls12_check_peer_sigalg:wrong signature type

I also tried modifying the openssl.cnf , but I am still getting the same 'SSL connect error'

Answer 1

Instructions to change the openssl.file:

1. Find where the openssl.cnf file is stored by running from your terminal:

   openssl version -d

2. Run: sudo nano /usr/lib/ssl/openssl.cnf

3. Modify the config file as follows: Add at the begining:

   openssl_conf = default_conf

and at the end add:

[ default_conf ]

ssl_conf = ssl_sect

[ssl_sect]

system_default = ssl_default_sect

[ssl_default_sect]
MinProtocol = TLSv1.2
CipherString = DEFAULT:@SECLEVEL=1

Next open RStudio:

file_path <- './data/raw/nmvs_data.zip'
url <- 'https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/tbl/csv/23100008-eng.zip'
download.file(url, file_path)
trying URL 'https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/tbl/csv/23100008-eng.zip'
Content type 'application/zip' length 3103330 bytes (3.0 MB)
==================================================
downloaded 3.0 MB

I also want to mention that these instructions helped me also to install the sf R package.

Thanks to Matt Caswell for his response . It would be neat to learn how to set up the path to point to another .cnf from RStudio (something similar to export OPENSSL_CONF=/home/Documents/new_openssl.cnf from terminal)