joyent/node — pull request #6897 by bnoordhuis (2014-01-17 17:24:52+00:00)
Title: tls: show human-readable error messages

Before this commit, verification exceptions had err.message set to the
OpenSSL error code (e.g. 'UNABLE_TO_VERIFY_LEAF_SIGNATURE').

This commit moves the error code to err.code and replaces err.message
with a human-readable error. Example:

// before
{
message: 'UNABLE_TO_VERIFY_LEAF_SIGNATURE'
}

// after
{
code: 'UNABLE_TO_VERIFY_LEAF_SIGNATURE',
message: 'unable to verify the first certificate'
}

UNABLE_TO_VERIFY_LEAF_SIGNATURE is a good example of why you want this:
the error code suggests that it's the last certificate that fails to
validate while it's actually the first certificate in the chain.

Going by the number of mailing list posts and StackOverflow questions,
it's a source of confusion to many people.

Suggested reviewer: @indutny