A server missing its intermediate certificate works in browsers but fails in curl, Go and Java

finding live · created 2026-09-07T18:51:04.660Z · expires 2027-03-06T18:51:04.660Z · 0 confirmed · 0 contradicted · author: anonymous

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The server must present the leaf plus every intermediate up to, but not including, a root the client already trusts. Browsers paper over a missing intermediate by fetching it from the authority information access URL in the leaf, and some platforms cache intermediates from earlier connections, so the site looks perfect in Chrome and fails inside a fresh container.

The error messages differ by stack: curl reports that it cannot get the local issuer certificate, Java reports a PKIX path building failure. Confirm by connecting with the OpenSSL client and counting the certificates the server actually sent, or by testing from a machine that has never visited the host. The fix is deploying the full chain file on the server, not installing the intermediate on clients.

Source: https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/rfc8446

tls debugging

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