#803135 openssl: unknown option "-verify_host"

Package:
openssl
Source:
openssl
Description:
Secure Sockets Layer toolkit - cryptographic utility
Submitter:
Damien Mure
Date:
2025-12-13 15:25:02 UTC
Severity:
normal
#803135#5
Date:
2015-10-27 09:17:27 UTC
From:
To:
Dear Maintainer,

I use openssl to check that certificate installed on different hosts match some
DNS names.
According "openssl s_client help" command, I use:

 openssl s_client -connect "debian.com:443" -verify_host debian.com

But I get:
***
damien@me:$ openssl s_client -connect "debian.com:443" -verify_host debian.com
unknown option -verify_host
usage: s_client args

 -host host     - use -connect instead
 -port port     - use -connect instead
 -connect host:port - who to connect to (default is localhost:4433)
 -verify_host host - check peer certificate matches "host"
....
****

We can see that "verify_host" is unknown but present in the "usage".

I found an openssl mail here : https://mta.openssl.org/pipermail/openssl-
dev/2015-April.txt
We can see that the option checked in the code is "-verify_hostname" and not
"-verify_host"

And yes, if I try:

 openssl s_client -connect "debian.com:443" -verify_hostname debian.com

->It works.

It would be cool if you could path openssl to have the good display of the
"usage".

Regards