nrfutil toolchain-manager "Error: Failed to retrieve toolchain-index" due to corporate SSL/TLS inspection

[ntgabriel]

Could you provide details on how the nrfutil toolchain-manager makes its internet requests?  Or even better, how to add certificates to be trusted in making its TLS connections? 

Our corporate internet security systems are causing the connections to fail, and we need to know what framework is used by the toolchain-manager so that we can work with our IT to resolve or workaround it.  Here are some examples of such workarounds for other development tools (Python PIP, NPM, etc.): https://help.zscaler.com/zia/adding-custom-certificate-application-specific-trust-store 

For context the nrfutil toolchain-manager gives us this error:

C:\>nrfutil toolchain-manager search
Error: Failed to retrieve toolchain-index

Caused by:
0: Failed to download index
1: Get request failed
2: developer.nordicsemi.com/.../index-windows-x86_64.json: Connection Failed: tls connection init failed: invalid peer certificate: UnknownIssuer
3: invalid peer certificate: UnknownIssuer

Or a similar error via the nRF Connect VS Code extension, in that case "Failed to fetch available toolchains." is the high-level error that pops up, but the accompanying console output shows same error as nrfutil toolchain-manager gives on command-line.

I have seen other DevZone posts (such as  "Failed to fetch available toolchains." on Visual Studio Code  ) with same error, but none of them explain how to add trusted certificates so the download works on a network employing SSL/TLS inspection.

Again this is not an issue with the nrfutil toolchain-manager or nRF Connect VS Code extension itself.  But do need to know more about how it works to enable us to get it to work as intended in our corporate environment.

[dejans]

Hi,

Do you use WSL or virtual machine? If so, this discussion might be relevant.

Best regards,
Dejan

[ntgabriel]

Thanks for the response.  No, this is directly in Windows.  We need to find a way to add our certificates into the network call(s) that nrfutil toolchain-manager is making.

[dejans]

Hi,

Could you try to use .pem file with your certificate chain?

Best regards,
Dejan

[ntgabriel]

Yes, I could try that, I do have a .pem file ready to try that has the needed custom certificates in it.  How do I tell nrfutil toolchain-manager about these extra certificates?

Just as one example, if it were Python pip or requests making the network call, we can do this certificate modification via a Windows environment variable `REQUESTS_CA_BUNDLE` that gives a path to the custom .pem file.

[dejans]

Hi,

If the SSL_CERT_FILE environment variable is set, certificates (in PEM format) are read from that file.
You could also use this file which has crt extension, but it is in PEM format.

Best regards,
Dejan