Here is how to POST a form action to a SSL server's cgi and retrieve output with pfsockopen
<?php
$host = gethostbyaddr($_SERVER['REMOTE_ADDR']);
$host = 'www.example.com';
$service_uri = '/cgi-bin/processACT';
$vars ='code=22&act=TEST';
$header = "Host: $host\r\n";
$header .= "User-Agent: PHP Script\r\n";
$header .= "Content-Type: application/x-www-form-urlencoded\r\n";
$header .= "Content-Length: ".strlen($vars)."\r\n";
$header .= "Connection: close\r\n\r\n";
$fp = pfsockopen("ssl://".$host, 443, $errno, $errstr);
if (!$fp) {
echo "$errstr ($errno)<br/>\n";
echo $fp;
} else {
fputs($fp, "POST $service_uri HTTP/1.1\r\n");
fputs($fp, $header.$vars);
fwrite($fp, $out);
while (!feof($fp)) {
echo fgets($fp, 128);
}
fclose($fp);
}
?>