better timeout handling

diff --cc sfa/util/xmlrpcprotocol.py
index ca6bbea,9232e07..0c07acc
--- 1/sfa/util/xmlrpcprotocol.py
--- 2/sfa/util/xmlrpcprotocol.py
+++ b/sfa/util/xmlrpcprotocol.py
@@@ -46,13 -46,11 +46,14 @@@ class XMLRPCTransport(xmlrpclib.Transpo
          # host may be a string, or a (host, x509-dict) tuple
          host, extra_headers, x509 = self.get_host_info(host)
          if need_HTTPSConnection:
-             conn = HTTPSConnection(host, None, key_file=self.key_file, cert_file=self.cert_file, timeout=self.timeout) #**(x509 or {}))
+             #conn = HTTPSConnection(host, None, key_file=self.key_file, cert_file=self.cert_file, timeout=self.timeout) #**(x509 or {}))
+             conn = HTTPSConnection(host, None, key_file=self.key_file, cert_file=self.cert_file) #**(x509 or {}))
          else:
 -            #conn = HTTPS(host, None, key_file=self.key_file, cert_file=self.cert_file, timeout=self.timeout) #**(x509 or {}))
 -            conn = HTTPS(host, None, key_file=self.key_file, cert_file=self.cert_file) #**(x509 or {}))
 +            try:
 +                conn = HTTPS(host, None, key_file=self.key_file, cert_file=self.cert_file, timeout=self.timeout) #**(x509 or {}))
 +            except TypeError:
 +                # some versions don't have a timeout argument
 +                conn = HTTPS(host, None, key_file=self.key_file, cert_file=self.cert_file) #**(x509 or {}))
  
          if hasattr(conn, 'set_timeout'):
              conn.set_timeout(self.timeout)