please specify both --sslcert and --sslkey when requesting -

Error message

please specify both --sslcert and --sslkey when requesting --ssl

What it means

validateSSL enforces that when --ssl is requested, both the certificate and key files must be provided. Enabling TLS with only one of them leaves the listener unconfigurable, so startup fails with this message.

Source

Thrown at config.go:137

		return 443
	}
	return 80
}

// wantsUnixSocketOnly reports whether the user asked to serve exclusively
// over a Unix domain socket, with no TCP listener at all. This holds only
// when --unixsocket is given and nothing else implies a TCP listener is
// wanted (--port, --address, or --redirport); otherwise the Unix socket
// (if any) is served alongside the usual TCP listener(s).
func wantsUnixSocketOnly(unixSocket string, portFlag int, addrlist []string, redirPort int) bool {
	return unixSocket != "" && portFlag == 0 && len(addrlist) == 0 && redirPort == 0
}

// validateSSL checks that SSL-related flags are consistent.
func validateSSL(ssl bool, certFile, keyFile string) error {
	if ssl {
		if certFile == "" || keyFile == "" {
			return fmt.Errorf("please specify both --sslcert and --sslkey when requesting --ssl")
		}
	} else {
		if certFile != "" || keyFile != "" {
			return fmt.Errorf("you should not be using --ssl* flags when there is no --ssl option")
		}
	}
	return nil
}

// validateBinaryPassStderr checks that --binary and --passstderr aren't both
// set. Tagging binary chunks as JSON isn't implemented (--passstderr always
// reads line by line), so combining the two would silently discard --binary
// instead of behaving as either flag alone.
func validateBinaryPassStderr(binary, passStderr bool) error {
	if binary && passStderr {
		return fmt.Errorf("please only specify one of --binary and --passstderr")
	}
	return nil

View on GitHub (pinned to 7a8683dc7f)

Solutions

Pass both flags: --ssl --sslcert /path/cert.pem --sslkey /path/key.pem
Generate a self-signed pair for testing, e.g. openssl req -x509 -newkey rsa:2048 -nodes -keyout key.pem -out cert.pem
Remove --ssl if you actually want plain HTTP/WS

Example fix

// before
websocketd --ssl --port=443 ./script.sh
// after
websocketd --ssl --sslcert=cert.pem --sslkey=key.pem --port=443 ./script.sh

Defensive patterns

Strategy: validation

Validate before calling

if (useTLS && (!certPath || !keyPath)) throw new Error('--ssl requires both --sslcert and --sslkey');

Type guard

const sslConfigOk = (c) => !c.ssl || (Boolean(c.sslcert) && Boolean(c.sslkey));

Try / catch

try { startServer(cfg) } catch (e) { if (/sslcert and --sslkey/.test(e)) console.error('supply both cert and key or drop --ssl'); throw e; }

Prevention

Generate cert+key together with openssl and store both paths in your deploy config
Validate the full flag set in your launch script before exec'ing websocketd

When it happens

Trigger: Running websocketd with --ssl but omitting --sslcert, --sslkey, or both, i.e. ssl==true while certFile or keyFile is an empty string.

Common situations: Enabling --ssl during local testing without generating cert/key; forgetting the key path when cert and key live in different directories; config migration dropping one flag.

Understand the failure class

SSL/TLS and certificate errors — how TLS handshakes and certificate validation fail.

Related errors

AI-assisted analysis of joewalnes/websocketd@7a8683dc7f (2026-09-03). Data as JSON: /api/errors/46767bc6effddc25. Report an issue: GitHub.