How can cURL be utilized in PHP to access and interact with files on remote servers securely?

To securely access and interact with files on remote servers using cURL in PHP, you can use HTTPS protocol for secure communication. This ensures that the data transmitted between your PHP script and the remote server is encrypted. Additionally, you can verify the SSL certificate of the remote server to ensure the connection is secure and not intercepted by a malicious third party.

// Initialize cURL session
$ch = curl_init();

// Set the URL of the remote file
$url = 'https://example.com/remote-file.txt';

// Set cURL options for secure communication
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_URL, $url);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, true);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_SSL_VERIFYPEER, true);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_SSL_VERIFYHOST, 2);

// Execute the cURL session and fetch the remote file
$response = curl_exec($ch);

// Close the cURL session
curl_close($ch);

// Output the contents of the remote file
echo $response;