Creating a TLS connection from a button within a browser using node-forge?

Question

Would it be possible to create a TLS connection from within a browser using node-forge? I'm basically looking to test/verify the TLS handshake and simply output info about it in the browser. Node-forge seems like a javascript tls implementation but not sure it would be possible to do what I want in a browser as mainly seems like it works with node.

var socket = new net.Socket();
 
var client = forge.tls.createConnection({
  server: false,
  verify: function(connection, verified, depth, certs) {
    // skip verification for testing
    console.log('[tls] server certificate verified');
    return true;
  },
  connected: function(connection) {
    console.log('[tls] connected');
    // prepare some data to send (note that the string is interpreted as
    // 'binary' encoded, which works for HTTP which only uses ASCII, use
    // forge.util.encodeUtf8(str) otherwise
    client.prepare('GET / HTTP/1.0\r\n\r\n');
  },
  tlsDataReady: function(connection) {
    // encrypted data is ready to be sent to the server
    var data = connection.tlsData.getBytes();
    socket.write(data, 'binary'); // encoding should be 'binary'
  },
  dataReady: function(connection) {
    // clear data from the server is ready
    var data = connection.data.getBytes();
    console.log('[tls] data received from the server: ' + data);
  },
  closed: function() {
    console.log('[tls] disconnected');
  },
  error: function(connection, error) {
    console.log('[tls] error', error);
  }
});
 
socket.on('connect', function() {
  console.log('[socket] connected');
  client.handshake();
});
socket.on('data', function(data) {
  client.process(data.toString('binary')); // encoding should be 'binary'
});
socket.on('end', function() {
  console.log('[socket] disconnected');
});
 
// connect to google.com
socket.connect(443, 'google.com');
 
// or connect to gmail's imap server (but don't send the HTTP header above)
//socket.connect(993, 'imap.gmail.com');

This example snippets is using net.sockets but would this work from within a browser?

@Mr.Goferito [forge - Building for a web browser](https://github.com/digitalbazaar/forge#building-for-a-web-browser) Do you find it helpful? — Ayush, Nov 13 '21 at 14:12

score 0 · Answer 1 · answered Aug 11 '23 at 16:51

This answer is antiquated now though, I found myself facing a similar need, here is the answered questioned using websockify facing a TLS server

      var Buffer = (your Browser buffer polyfill of choice, I used filer);

      var Socket;

      var client = forge.tls.createConnection({
        server: false,
        verify: function (connection, verified, depth, certs) {
          // skip verification for testing
          console.log("[tls] server certificate verified");
          return true;
        },
        connected: function (connection) {
          console.log("[tls] connected");
          // prepare some data to send (note that the string is interpreted as
          // 'binary' encoded, which works for HTTP which only uses ASCII, use
          // forge.util.encodeUtf8(str) otherwise
          client.prepare("GET / HTTP/1.0\r\n\r\n");
        },
        tlsDataReady: function (connection) {
          // encrypted data is ready to be sent to the server
          var data = connection.tlsData.getBytes();
          socket.send(Buffer.from(data, "binary")); // encoding should be 'binary'
        },
        dataReady: function (connection) {
          // clear data from the server is ready
          var data = connection.data.getBytes();
          console.log("[tls] data received from the server: " + data);
        },
        closed: function () {
          console.log("[tls] disconnected");
        },
        error: function (connection, error) {
          console.log("[tls] error", error);
        },
      });

      socket = new WebSocket("ws://websockifyhost");

      socket.onopen = function () {
        console.log("[socket] connected");
        client.handshake();
      };

      socket.onmessage = async function (event) {
        const data = await event.data.arrayBuffer(); 
        client.process(Buffer.from(data).toString("binary"));
      };
      socket.onclose = function () {
        console.log("[socket] disconnected");
      };

Code-only answers should be updated to explain how the code resolves the question, further guidance can be found in the [Help Center](https://stackoverflow.com/help/how-to-answer) — Harrison, Aug 15 '23 at 11:58

Creating a TLS connection from a button within a browser using node-forge?

1 Answers1