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python requests x509 certificate

Narkw Brahma

Narkw Brahma

• 1 min read

Python Requests X509 Certificate

If you are working with secure websites and APIs, you may need to use an X509 certificate to authenticate your requests. Python Requests is a popular library for making HTTP requests, and it provides built-in support for working with X509 certificates.

Using an X509 Certificate with Requests

To use an X509 certificate with Requests, you need to create a session and pass in the path to your certificate file and key file:


import requests

session = requests.Session()
session.cert = ('/path/to/cert.pem', '/path/to/key.pem')

response = session.get('https://example.com/api')

The cert attribute of the session object is a tuple containing the path to the certificate file and the path to the key file.

You can also pass in a tuple of client-side certificates, which can be useful if the server requires a chain of certificates to validate your identity:


import requests

cert_files = ('/path/to/cert1.pem', '/path/to/cert2.pem')
key_file = '/path/to/key.pem'

session = requests.Session()
session.cert = (cert_files, key_file)

response = session.get('https://example.com/api')

Verifying Server Certificates

When making requests over HTTPS, Python Requests verifies the server's SSL certificate by default. If the certificate cannot be verified, Requests will raise a requests.exceptions.SSLError. You can disable this behavior by setting verify=False:


import requests

session = requests.Session()
session.verify = False

response = session.get('https://example.com/api')

However, it's generally a bad idea to disable certificate verification, as it opens you up to vulnerability to man-in-the-middle attacks. Instead, you should include the server's SSL certificate in your certificate store:


import requests

session = requests.Session()
session.verify = '/path/to/ca-bundle.crt'

response = session.get('https://example.com/api')

The verify attribute of the session object is set to the path of a CA bundle file that contains the server's SSL certificate. This file should be in PEM format.

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