Hmmm!

Your stuff looks all wrong to me. The SSL_ca_file refers to the certificate of the CA (certification authority) not the authentication certificate of a client.

From what I know an http authentication can not be done with a certificate. It is done with user credentials (username/passwords) protected by an encrypted communication (https). The certificates only allow to secure your are connected to the correct server.

Depending on your architecture the authentication processes might be implemented with different services. I assume in your case a first layer of authentication is implemented with user credentials and a second security layer is an ssh authentication service. Once you are authenticated with the user credentials, the ssh service validates a user certificate (private key) and a token is passed to the application server. This token will allow you to start an session.

For more help I guess any monks will need more information as to what you want to do.

K