Can't use Facebook real-time updates webhook with self-signed ssl certificate

Question

I'm trying to setup a callback_url with facebook's real-time updates webhooks on my local machine. However, it is requiring me to use SSL. Annoying for develoment, but whatever. I setup a self-signed certificate, and now facebook complains about that:

{
  "error": {
    "message": "(#2200) callback verification failed: SSL certificate problem: self signed certificate",
    "type": "OAuthException",
    "code": 2200,
    "fbtrace_id": "ak9ii3432"
  }
}

Is there no easy way to develop this locally without paying for a trusted SSL certificate and going through that hassle?

Does this help: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/12091202/facebook-real-time-updates-2200-callback-verification-failed-code-2200 — peeldog, Nov 25 '15 at 05:39
@peeldog no, it doesn't. I am able to access my server just fine. — LordZardeck, Nov 25 '15 at 06:15
You are able to access your server... but is your server able to be "reached from outside" — peeldog, Nov 25 '15 at 06:34
@peeldog, yes. I verified this using a domain name and computer outside my network. — LordZardeck, Nov 25 '15 at 16:06
@bubakazouba I was able to solve the problem. Sorry for the late reply. Please see my answer — LordZardeck, Mar 11 '16 at 00:03

score 2 · Accepted Answer · answered Mar 11 '16 at 00:03

So I was able to solve the problem, but I just got around to documenting it as I came across the issue again (got to love using Facebook Real-time Webhooks).

Solution was to utilize No-IP in coordination with Cloudflare to provide static access to my local server with SSL domains.

I wrote an article on my blog explaining it: https://templeton.io/local-facebook-real-time-api/

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Jan 08 '16 at 11:46

Short answer is no. You need a valid SSL certificate and an self-signed won't work. Please think about this, even for testing, Facebook is going to send information out to an external server so there is a need for Facebook to automatically validate that server. I understand this can be annoying but necessary for security reasons.

Please consider using services as heroku, which provide a subdomain with a valid SSL certificate you can use for your tests (and maybe even to host your production App if you like it)

Can't use Facebook real-time updates webhook with self-signed ssl certificate

2 Answers2