cURL (groks URL) can be used as a SOAP client to send XML SOAP requests to web services. But the problems that I was facing in sending the data directly with the -d switch of curl is that DOS command shell would greet me with an error message:

< was unexpected at this time.

But there is a great way to send data in the POST requests by using the -d switch with the @ symbol. For example to send the xml data in the xmlfilewithdata.xml in the POST request to http://www.somesite.com/thewebservice you could use the following command:
curl -d @xmlfilewithdata.xml http://www.somesite.com/thewebservice

Off go all the errors and there it is …. your SOAP client – cURL!

The problem: Using Digital Certificates issued by a Certification Authority (CA) with curl.

The situation: I have a .cer (Digital Certificate) file, .pfx (Personal Information Exchange file i.e., the private key for the certificate). I cannot use either of these to authenticate to the web service as curl would not accept these formats.

The solution:
1) Convert it into PEM format (X.509 certificate) using openssl.
openssl pkcs12 -in abcd.pfx -out abcd.pem
Enter a passphrase and a password.
2) Still you cannot use this with curl because you’d get a few errors.
3) Convert this PEM certificate into three different certificates for the client, the private key and the certification authority certificate.
openssl pkcs12 -in abcd.pfx -out ca.pem -cacerts -nokeys
openssl pkcs12 -in abcd.pfx -out client.pem -clcerts -nokeys
openssl pkcs12 -in abcd.pfx -out key.pem -nocerts
4) Use the following command:
curl -k https://www.thesitetoauthenticate.com/test -v –key key.pem –cacert ca.pem –cert client.pem:

This stuff is also mentioned on curl forum at http://curl.haxx.se/mail/archive-2005-09/0138.html

These are the firefox URLs for different settings. Just paste them into the browser and bang, there you go:

chrome://pippki/content/getpassword.xul
chrome://pippki/content/PrefOverlay.xul
chrome://pippki/content/pref-ssl.xul
chrome://pippki/content/pref-certs.xul
chrome://pippki/content/pref-ciphers.xul
chrome://pippki/content/cipherinfo.xul
chrome://pippki/content/ssl2ciphers.xul
chrome://pippki/content/ssl3tlsciphers.xul
chrome://pippki/content/ssl3tlsciphers2.xul
chrome://pippki/content/PageInfoOverlay.xul
chrome://pippki/content/cacertexists.xul
chrome://pippki/content/CAOverlay.xul
chrome://pippki/content/WebSitesOverlay.xul
chrome://pippki/content/OthersOverlay.xul
chrome://pippki/content/MineOverlay.xul
chrome://pippki/content/viewCertDetails.xul
chrome://pippki/content/certpicker.xul
chrome://pippki/content/certDump.xul
chrome://pippki/content/load_device.xul
chrome://pippki/content/pref-validation.xul
chrome://pippki/content/pref-masterpass.xul
chrome://pippki/content/createCertInfo.xul
chrome://pippki/content/formsigning.xul
chrome://pippki/content/changepassword.xul
chrome://pippki/content/resetpassword.xul
chrome://pippki/content/newserver.xul
chrome://pippki/content/downloadcert.xul
chrome://pippki/content/certManager.xul
chrome://pippki/content/editcacert.xul
chrome://pippki/content/editemailcert.xul
chrome://pippki/content/editsslcert.xul
chrome://pippki/content/deletecert.xul
chrome://pippki/content/getp12password.xul
chrome://pippki/content/setp12password.xul
chrome://pippki/content/domainMismatch.xul
chrome://pippki/content/serverCertExpired.xul
chrome://pippki/content/clientauthask.xul
chrome://pippki/content/certViewer.xul
chrome://pippki/content/device_manager.xul
chrome://pippki/content/choosetoken.xul
chrome://pippki/content/escrowWarn.xul
chrome://pippki/content/crlManager.xul
chrome://pippki/content/serverCrlNextupdate.xul
chrome://pippki/content/crlImportDialog.xul
chrome://pippki/content/pref-crlupdate.xul
chrome://pippki/content/getpassword.xul
chrome://pippki/content/PrefOverlay.xul
chrome://pippki/content/pref-ssl.xul
chrome://pippki/content/pref-certs.xul
chrome://pippki/content/pref-ciphers.xul
chrome://pippki/content/cipherinfo.xul
chrome://pippki/content/ssl2ciphers.xul
chrome://pippki/content/ssl3tlsciphers.xul
chrome://pippki/content/ssl3tlsciphers2.xul
chrome://pippki/content/PageInfoOverlay.xul
chrome://pippki/content/cacertexists.xul
chrome://pippki/content/CAOverlay.xul
chrome://pippki/content/WebSitesOverlay.xul
chrome://pippki/content/OthersOverlay.xul
chrome://pippki/content/MineOverlay.xul
chrome://pippki/content/viewCertDetails.xul
chrome://pippki/content/certpicker.xul
chrome://pippki/content/certDump.xul
chrome://pippki/content/load_device.xul
chrome://pippki/content/pref-validation.xul
chrome://pippki/content/pref-masterpass.xul
chrome://pippki/content/createCertInfo.xul
chrome://pippki/content/formsigning.xul
chrome://pippki/content/changepassword.xul
chrome://pippki/content/resetpassword.xul
chrome://pippki/content/newserver.xul
chrome://pippki/content/downloadcert.xul
chrome://pippki/content/certManager.xul
chrome://pippki/content/editcacert.xul
chrome://pippki/content/editemailcert.xul
chrome://pippki/content/editsslcert.xul
chrome://pippki/content/deletecert.xul
chrome://pippki/content/getp12password.xul
chrome://pippki/content/setp12password.xul
chrome://pippki/content/domainMismatch.xul
chrome://pippki/content/serverCertExpired.xul
chrome://pippki/content/clientauthask.xul
chrome://pippki/content/certViewer.xul
chrome://pippki/content/device_manager.xul
chrome://pippki/content/choosetoken.xul
chrome://pippki/content/escrowWarn.xul
chrome://pippki/content/crlManager.xul
chrome://pippki/content/serverCrlNextupdate.xul
chrome://pippki/content/crlImportDialog.xul
chrome://pippki/content/pref-crlupdate.xul