The callback function, if specified, will be added as a listener for the 'secureConnect' event.

tls.connect() returns a TLSSocket object.

Unlike the https API, tls.connect() does not enable the SNI (Server Name Indication) extension by default, which may cause some servers to return an incorrect certificate or reject the connection altogether. To enable SNI, set the servername option in addition to host.

The following illustrates a client for the echo server example from createServer:

// Assumes an echo server that is listening on port 8000.
const tls = require('node:tls');
const fs = require('node:fs');

const options = {
  // Necessary only if the server requires client certificate authentication.
  key: fs.readFileSync('client-key.pem'),
  cert: fs.readFileSync('client-cert.pem'),

  // Necessary only if the server uses a self-signed certificate.
  ca: [ fs.readFileSync('server-cert.pem') ],

  // Necessary only if the server's cert isn't for "localhost".
  checkServerIdentity: () => { return null; },
};

const socket = tls.connect(8000, options, () => {
  console.log('client connected',
              socket.authorized ? 'authorized' : 'unauthorized');
  process.stdin.pipe(socket);
  process.stdin.resume();
});
socket.setEncoding('utf8');
socket.on('data', (data) => {
  console.log(data);
});
socket.on('end', () => {
  console.log('server ends connection');
});