Cannot establish SSL connection with Composer with PHP 5.6.3

Question

After cloning a repository on Ubuntu 14.04 with PHP 5.6.3 I am unable to run php composer.phar selfupdate neither php composer.phar update. I get t

Answer 1

For a similar ssl connection error

error:14090086:SSL routines:SSL3_GET_SERVER_CERTIFICATE:certificate

Here is how I got it resolved.