Stata Net Install ↔ OS TLS/DNS Stack: How are certificate validation errors surfaced?

Goal

Determine how Stata’s internet‑access commands expose TLS/HTTPS errors, particularly certificate validation failures, and what visibility the user has into DNS resolution.

Constraints

Stata delegates DNS and TLS to the host OS and its built‑in networking libraries; no Stata‑level options exist for custom CA bundles or TLS version selection. The error messages are intentionally generic, often only indicating “cannot connect” or “host not found.”

Unresolved Decision

Whether Stata should surface more granular TLS error details and provide a documented way to inspect or override validation, or remain opaque and rely on OS‑level troubleshooting.

Questions

• What specific diagnostic text does Stata emit when an HTTPS request fails due to an untrusted or expired certificate?
• Is there a documented method to inspect the TLS handshake or certificate chain from within Stata?
• Should future Stata releases expose options for custom CA bundles or TLS version selection to aid troubleshooting?