Secured socket in PHP

[priyank9]

Hi, I have some question about SSL and socket functions in PHP. I am new in web development and SSL networking. Actually I was trying to make a PHP MSN client. I am trying to connect with hotmail server to get ticket to login into MSN using socket.
I use function like

$msnSock = fsockopen("ssl://loginnet.passport.com",443);

. But this function gives me error “no SSL support in this build” even when I am trying to use CURL it gives me error at “Call to undefined function: curl_init()”. What I feel is may be because I don’t have SSL certificate for my server. But I am not sure. Do I need to get SSL certificate? Can I get some help to solve this problem?
Thanks in advance.

[MarkR]

You should really be using a build of PHP with SSL support. This is generally desirable. To behave as a SSL client, it's not necessary to have a HTTPS server or a server certificate (this is entirely independent).

When configuring PHP, add --with-openssl to enable SSL support.

If you're using a pre-built binary, I am surprised SSL is not already included. If so, get a new one which does have it.

Mark