To avoid issues with timeouts we've written our HTTP/HTTPS protocol testers using
the curb rubgem.

Upon a Debian GNU/Linux system this may be installed via:

  apt-get install build-essential libcurl4-gnutls-dev rubygems1.8
  gem install curb

If you prefer to install from source you can find the project code
hosted on github:

  https://github.com/taf2/curb