Insomnia: Error: SSL peer certificate or SSH remote key was not OK
Matthew C.
—The Problem
When testing a server API endpoint by making an HTTP request using Insomnia, you may get the following response error:
Error: SSL peer certificate or SSH remote key was not OK
Note that if you’re making an HTTP request, the “SSH remote key” part of the error message is irrelevant, as Secure Shell (SSH) is a different network protocol.
The Solution
There are two reasons you may encounter this error.
Your SSL Certificate Is Invalid or Has Expired
If you are testing on a local development server, you can disable SSL certificates validation:
- In the Insomnia Desktop app, click on Application at the top-left of the nav bar and open Preferences.
- In the Request / Response section, un-check Validate certificates.
- Note that this does not affect SSL certificate validation during authentication.
If you use a client certificate, you can import the certificate into Insomnia and assign the client certificate to a specific domain name.
You Use macOS and Need To Upgrade Your Insomnia to Version 8.5 or Higher
The error may be caused libcurl builds that require the use of OpenSSL for SSL/TLS in older versions of Insomnia. By default, modern macOS systems use Secure Transport for SSL/TLS and cannot use OpenSSL unless they have been configured to do so. Insomnia version 8.5 fixed this issue by making libcurl builds for macOS use Secure Transport for SSL/TLS.
If you’re using an earlier version of Insomnia than version 8.5 on a macOS, upgrade to the latest Insomnia version.
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