Ubuntu server 12.0.4 SSL23_GET_SERVER_HELLO:sslv3 alert handshake failure

Ran into some trouble with Ubuntu 12.0.4 and an “SSL23_GET_SERVER_HELLO:sslv3 alert handshake failure” error while accessing the Zoho Docs API through Python. Apparently Zoho’s API endpoint enforces a certain SSL version. The full python error was:

SSLError: [Errno 1] _ssl.c:504: error:14077410:SSL routines:SSL23_GET_SERVER_HELLO:sslv3 alert handshake failure

After ruling out python and openssl, the fix was to simply update to Ubuntu 12.0.4.1 through apt:

apt-get update
apt-get upgrade

And for the hell of it did a distribution upgrade:

apt-get dist-upgrade