GoDaddy, cURL, HTTP, and 403 Errors

By  on  

I was recently coding PHP cURL functionality for a GoDaddy-hosted website and I kept running into an annoying 403 error. Essentially, GoDaddy's proxy server (which they force you to use for cURL) was giving me a "Forbidden" error and wasn't trying to hit the necessary server. Here's the code that GoDaddy tells you to use for cURL transactions:

$URL='https://www.paypal.com';
$ch = curl_init();
echo 'URL = $URL <br>n';
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_VERBOSE, 1);
curl_setopt ($ch, CURLOPT_HTTPPROXYTUNNEL, TRUE);
curl_setopt ($ch, CURLOPT_PROXYTYPE, CURLPROXY_HTTP);
curl_setopt ($ch, CURLOPT_PROXY,'http://proxy.shr.secureserver.net:3128');
curl_setopt ($ch, CURLOPT_SSL_VERIFYPEER, FALSE);
curl_setopt ($ch, CURLOPT_URL, $URL);
curl_setopt ($ch, CURLOPT_TIMEOUT, 120);
$result = curl_exec ($ch);
echo '<hr><br>n';
echo 'Errors: ' . curl_errno($ch) . ' ' . curl_error($ch) . '<br><br>';
echo '<hr><br>n';
curl_close ($ch);
print 'result - $result';
echo '<hr><br>n';

The problem is that since I'm not using SSL in this instance, I don't need to use the following cURL option:

curl_setopt($ch,CURLOPT_HTTPPROXYTUNNEL, true);

Remember that if you receive this error from GoDaddy's server. Hopefully I save someone a bunch of time with this.

Recent Features

  • By
    Camera and Video Control with HTML5

    Client-side APIs on mobile and desktop devices are quickly providing the same APIs.  Of course our mobile devices got access to some of these APIs first, but those APIs are slowly making their way to the desktop.  One of those APIs is the getUserMedia API...

  • By
    JavaScript Promise API

    While synchronous code is easier to follow and debug, async is generally better for performance and flexibility. Why "hold up the show" when you can trigger numerous requests at once and then handle them when each is ready?  Promises are becoming a big part of the JavaScript world...

Incredible Demos

  • By
    Introducing MooTools ElementSpy

    One part of MooTools I love is the ease of implementing events within classes. Just add Events to your Implements array and you can fire events anywhere you want -- these events are extremely helpful. ScrollSpy and many other popular MooTools plugins would...

  • By
    Fading Links Using jQuery:  dwFadingLinks

    UPDATE: The jQuery website was down today which caused some issues with my example. I've made everything local and now the example works. Earlier this week, I posted a MooTools script that faded links to and from a color during the mouseover and mouseout events.

Discussion

  1. Yea Godaddy has some strange settings like this. Plus it seems to be hit or miss when dealing with their support. :(

  2. cURL and GoDaddy

    Searching the GoDaddy FAQ/Help pages, it appears that as of September 10, 2008. GoDaddy is not longer requiring proxy connections to connect with CURL.

    Proxy servers are not required for
    outbound shared hosting connections as
    of September 10, 2008. Although it
    will continue to function after this
    date, we recommend code utilizing
    proxy servers be updated to reflect
    this change.

    http://help.godaddy.com/article/4764

  3. I wouldn’t trust the GoDaddy FAQ.

    It’s horribly outdated.

    I am switching to a VPS from a provider that I’ve known to be reliable, from GoDaddy.

  4. My problem with SSL and POST through CURL alsted 2 days, i am not on GoDaddy but your advice gave me the answers I needed, thankyou so much for bothering to post this!

  5. Hi,

    We are trying to retrieve XML from other server using CURL. But not happening. I have tried the above code. But no result. I am using Godaddy Linux Shared Hosting plan for my website.

    Please give me your suggestions on this.

    Thanks in advance…

Wrap your code in <pre class="{language}"></pre> tags, link to a GitHub gist, JSFiddle fiddle, or CodePen pen to embed!