diff --git a/Lib/httplib.py b/Lib/httplib.py
index 8238f1ae027..1db930ea932 100644
--- a/Lib/httplib.py
+++ b/Lib/httplib.py
@@ -754,13 +754,59 @@ def getresponse(self):
 
         return response
 
-class SSLFile:
+# The next several classes are used to define FakeSocket,a socket-like
+# interface to an SSL connection.
+
+# The primary complexity comes from faking a makefile() method.  The
+# standard socket makefile() implementation calls dup() on the socket
+# file descriptor.  As a consequence, clients can call close() on the
+# parent socket and its makefile children in any order.  The underlying
+# socket isn't closed until they are all closed.
+
+# The implementation uses reference counting to keep the socket open
+# until the last client calls close().  SharedSocket keeps track of
+# the reference counting and SharedSocketClient provides an constructor
+# and close() method that call incref() and decref() correctly.
+
+class SharedSocket:
+
+    def __init__(self, sock):
+        self.sock = sock
+        self._refcnt = 0
+
+    def incref(self):
+        self._refcnt += 1
+
+    def decref(self):
+        self._refcnt -= 1
+        assert self._refcnt >= 0
+        if self._refcnt == 0:
+            self.sock.close()
+
+    def __del__(self):
+        self.sock.close()
+
+class SharedSocketClient:
+
+    def __init__(self, shared):
+        self._closed = 0
+        self._shared = shared
+        self._shared.incref()
+        self._sock = shared.sock
+
+    def close(self):
+        if not self._closed:
+            self._shared.decref()
+            self._closed = 1
+            self._shared = None
+
+class SSLFile(SharedSocketClient):
     """File-like object wrapping an SSL socket."""
 
     BUFSIZE = 8192
     
     def __init__(self, sock, ssl, bufsize=None):
-        self._sock = sock
+        SharedSocketClient.__init__(self, sock)
         self._ssl = ssl
         self._buf = ''
         self._bufsize = bufsize or self.__class__.BUFSIZE
@@ -829,30 +875,36 @@ def readline(self):
             self._buf = all[i:]
             return line
 
-    def close(self):
-        self._sock.close()
+class FakeSocket(SharedSocketClient):
+
+    class _closedsocket:
+        def __getattr__(self, name):
+            raise error(9, 'Bad file descriptor')
 
-class FakeSocket:
     def __init__(self, sock, ssl):
-        self.__sock = sock
-        self.__ssl = ssl
+        sock = SharedSocket(sock)
+        SharedSocketClient.__init__(self, sock)
+        self._ssl = ssl
+
+    def close(self):
+        SharedSocketClient.close(self)
+        self._sock = self.__class__._closedsocket()
 
     def makefile(self, mode, bufsize=None):
         if mode != 'r' and mode != 'rb':
             raise UnimplementedFileMode()
-        return SSLFile(self.__sock, self.__ssl, bufsize)
+        return SSLFile(self._shared, self._ssl, bufsize)
 
     def send(self, stuff, flags = 0):
-        return self.__ssl.write(stuff)
+        return self._ssl.write(stuff)
 
-    def sendall(self, stuff, flags = 0):
-        return self.__ssl.write(stuff)
+    sendall = send
 
     def recv(self, len = 1024, flags = 0):
-        return self.__ssl.read(len)
+        return self._ssl.read(len)
 
     def __getattr__(self, attr):
-        return getattr(self.__sock, attr)
+        return getattr(self._sock, attr)
 
 
 class HTTPSConnection(HTTPConnection):
@@ -1101,15 +1153,11 @@ def readlines(self, size=None):
         else:
             return L + self._file.readlines(size)
 
-#
-# snarfed from httplib.py for now...
-#
 def test():
     """Test this module.
 
-    The test consists of retrieving and displaying the Python
-    home page, along with the error code and error string returned
-    by the www.python.org server.
+    A hodge podge of tests collected here, because they have too many
+    external dependencies for the regular test suite.
     """
 
     import sys
@@ -1130,11 +1178,11 @@ def test():
     status, reason, headers = h.getreply()
     print 'status =', status
     print 'reason =', reason
+    print "read", len(h.getfile().read())
     print
     if headers:
         for header in headers.headers: print header.strip()
     print
-    print "read", len(h.getfile().read())
 
     # minimal test that code to extract host from url works
     class HTTP11(HTTP):
@@ -1148,22 +1196,26 @@ class HTTP11(HTTP):
     h.close()
 
     if hasattr(socket, 'ssl'):
-        host = 'sourceforge.net'
-        selector = '/projects/python'
-        hs = HTTPS()
-        hs.connect(host)
-        hs.putrequest('GET', selector)
-        hs.endheaders()
-        status, reason, headers = hs.getreply()
-        # XXX why does this give a 302 response?
-        print 'status =', status
-        print 'reason =', reason
-        print
-        if headers:
-            for header in headers.headers: print header.strip()
-        print
-        print "read", len(hs.getfile().read())
+        
+        for host, selector in (('sourceforge.net', '/projects/python'),
+                               ('dbserv2.theopalgroup.com', '/mediumfile'),
+                               ('dbserv2.theopalgroup.com', '/smallfile'),
+                               ):
+            print "https://%s%s" % (host, selector)
+            hs = HTTPS()
+            hs.connect(host)
+            hs.putrequest('GET', selector)
+            hs.endheaders()
+            status, reason, headers = hs.getreply()
+            print 'status =', status
+            print 'reason =', reason
+            print "read", len(hs.getfile().read())
+            print
+            if headers:
+                for header in headers.headers: print header.strip()
+            print
 
+    return
 
     # Test a buggy server -- returns garbled status line.
     # http://www.yahoo.com/promotions/mom_com97/supermom.html