diff --git a/lib/py/src/transport/TSSLSocket.py b/lib/py/src/transport/TSSLSocket.py
index 5eff5e6..be35844 100644
--- a/lib/py/src/transport/TSSLSocket.py
+++ b/lib/py/src/transport/TSSLSocket.py
@@ -36,7 +36,7 @@
   """
   SSL_VERSION = ssl.PROTOCOL_TLSv1
 
-  def __init__(self, validate=True, ca_certs=None, *args, **kwargs):
+  def __init__(self, host='localhost', port=9090, validate=True, ca_certs=None, unix_socket=None):
     """
     @param validate: Set to False to disable SSL certificate validation entirely.
     @type validate: bool
@@ -56,10 +56,10 @@
     else:
       self.cert_reqs = ssl.CERT_REQUIRED
     self.ca_certs = ca_certs
-    if validate and ca_certs is not None:
-      if not os.access(ca_certs, os.R_OK):
+    if validate:
+      if ca_certs is None or not os.access(ca_certs, os.R_OK):
         raise IOError('Certificate Authority ca_certs file "%s" is not readable, cannot validate SSL certificates.' % (ca_certs))
-    TSocket.TSocket.__init__(self, *args, **kwargs)
+    TSocket.TSocket.__init__(self, host, port, unix_socket)
 
   def open(self):
     try:
@@ -131,7 +131,7 @@
   """
   SSL_VERSION = ssl.PROTOCOL_TLSv1
 
-  def __init__(self, certfile='cert.pem', *args, **kwargs):
+  def __init__(self, host=None, port=9090, certfile='cert.pem', unix_socket=None):
     """Initialize a TSSLServerSocket
     
     @param certfile: The filename of the server certificate file, defaults to cert.pem
@@ -143,7 +143,7 @@
     @type port: int
     """
     self.setCertfile(certfile)
-    TSocket.TServerSocket.__init__(self, *args, **kwargs)
+    TSocket.TServerSocket.__init__(self, host, port)
 
   def setCertfile(self, certfile):
     """Set or change the server certificate file used to wrap new connections.
@@ -159,8 +159,18 @@
 
   def accept(self):
     plain_client, addr = self.handle.accept()
+    try:
+      client = ssl.wrap_socket(plain_client, certfile=self.certfile,
+                      server_side=True, ssl_version=self.SSL_VERSION)
+    except ssl.SSLError, ssl_exc:
+      # failed handshake/ssl wrap, close socket to client
+      plain_client.close()
+      # raise ssl_exc
+      # We can't raise the exception, because it kills most TServer derived serve()
+      # methods.
+      # Instead, return None, and let the TServer instance deal with it in
+      # other exception handling.  (but TSimpleServer dies anyway)
+      return None 
     result = TSocket.TSocket()
-    client = ssl.wrap_socket(plain_client, certfile=self.certfile,
-                    server_side=True, ssl_version=self.SSL_VERSION)
     result.setHandle(client)
     return result
diff --git a/lib/py/src/transport/TZlibTransport.py b/lib/py/src/transport/TZlibTransport.py
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..784d4e1
--- /dev/null
+++ b/lib/py/src/transport/TZlibTransport.py
@@ -0,0 +1,261 @@
+#
+# Licensed to the Apache Software Foundation (ASF) under one
+# or more contributor license agreements. See the NOTICE file
+# distributed with this work for additional information
+# regarding copyright ownership. The ASF licenses this file
+# to you under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the
+# "License"); you may not use this file except in compliance
+# with the License. You may obtain a copy of the License at
+#
+#   http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
+#
+# Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing,
+# software distributed under the License is distributed on an
+# "AS IS" BASIS, WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY
+# KIND, either express or implied. See the License for the
+# specific language governing permissions and limitations
+# under the License.
+#
+'''
+TZlibTransport provides a compressed transport and transport factory
+class, using the python standard library zlib module to implement
+data compression.
+'''
+
+from __future__ import division
+import zlib
+from cStringIO import StringIO
+from TTransport import TTransportBase, CReadableTransport
+
+class TZlibTransportFactory(object):
+  '''
+  Factory transport that builds zlib compressed transports.
+  
+  This factory caches the last single client/transport that it was passed
+  and returns the same TZlibTransport object that was created.
+  
+  This caching means the TServer class will get the _same_ transport
+  object for both input and output transports from this factory.
+  (For non-threaded scenarios only, since the cache only holds one object)
+  
+  The purpose of this caching is to allocate only one TZlibTransport where
+  only one is really needed (since it must have separate read/write buffers),
+  and makes the statistics from getCompSavings() and getCompRatio()
+  easier to understand.
+  '''
+
+  # class scoped cache of last transport given and zlibtransport returned
+  _last_trans = None
+  _last_z = None
+
+  def getTransport(self, trans, compresslevel=9):
+    '''Wrap a transport , trans, with the TZlibTransport
+    compressed transport class, returning a new
+    transport to the caller.
+    
+    @param compresslevel: The zlib compression level, ranging
+    from 0 (no compression) to 9 (best compression).  Defaults to 9.
+    @type compresslevel: int
+    
+    This method returns a TZlibTransport which wraps the
+    passed C{trans} TTransport derived instance.
+    '''
+    if trans == self._last_trans:
+      return self._last_z
+    ztrans = TZlibTransport(trans, compresslevel)
+    self._last_trans = trans
+    self._last_z = ztrans
+    return ztrans
+
+
+class TZlibTransport(TTransportBase, CReadableTransport):
+  '''
+  Class that wraps a transport with zlib, compressing writes
+  and decompresses reads, using the python standard
+  library zlib module.
+  '''
+
+  # Read buffer size for the python fastbinary C extension,
+  # the TBinaryProtocolAccelerated class.
+  DEFAULT_BUFFSIZE = 4096
+
+  def __init__(self, trans, compresslevel=9):
+    '''
+    Create a new TZlibTransport, wrapping C{trans}, another
+    TTransport derived object.
+    
+    @param trans: A thrift transport object, i.e. a TSocket() object.
+    @type trans: TTransport
+    @param compresslevel: The zlib compression level, ranging
+    from 0 (no compression) to 9 (best compression).  Default is 9.
+    @type compresslevel: int
+    '''
+    self.__trans = trans
+    self.compresslevel = compresslevel
+    self.__rbuf = StringIO()
+    self.__wbuf = StringIO()
+    self._init_zlib()
+    self._init_stats()
+
+  def _reinit_buffers(self):
+    '''
+    Internal method to initialize/reset the internal StringIO objects
+    for read and write buffers.
+    '''
+    self.__rbuf = StringIO()
+    self.__wbuf = StringIO()
+
+  def _init_stats(self):
+    '''
+    Internal method to reset the internal statistics counters
+    for compression ratios and bandwidth savings.
+    '''
+    self.bytes_in = 0
+    self.bytes_out = 0
+    self.bytes_in_comp = 0
+    self.bytes_out_comp = 0
+
+  def _init_zlib(self):
+    '''
+    Internal method for setting up the zlib compression and
+    decompression objects.
+    '''
+    self._zcomp_read = zlib.decompressobj()
+    self._zcomp_write = zlib.compressobj(self.compresslevel)
+
+  def getCompRatio(self):
+    '''
+    Get the current measured compression ratios (in,out) from
+    this transport.
+    
+    Returns a tuple of: 
+    (inbound_compression_ratio, outbound_compression_ratio)
+    
+    The compression ratios are computed as:
+        compressed / uncompressed
+
+    E.g., data that compresses by 10x will have a ratio of: 0.10
+    and data that compresses to half of ts original size will
+    have a ratio of 0.5
+    
+    None is returned if no bytes have yet been processed in
+    a particular direction.
+    '''
+    r_percent, w_percent = (None, None)
+    if self.bytes_in > 0:
+      r_percent = self.bytes_in_comp / self.bytes_in
+    if self.bytes_out > 0:
+      w_percent = self.bytes_out_comp / self.bytes_out
+    return (r_percent, w_percent)
+
+  def getCompSavings(self):
+    '''
+    Get the current count of saved bytes due to data
+    compression.
+    
+    Returns a tuple of:
+    (inbound_saved_bytes, outbound_saved_bytes)
+    
+    Note: if compression is actually expanding your
+    data (only likely with very tiny thrift objects), then
+    the values returned will be negative.
+    '''
+    r_saved = self.bytes_in - self.bytes_in_comp
+    w_saved = self.bytes_out - self.bytes_out_comp
+    return (r_saved, w_saved)
+
+  def isOpen(self):
+    '''Return the underlying transport's open status'''
+    return self.__trans.isOpen()
+
+  def open(self):
+    """Open the underlying transport"""
+    self._init_stats()
+    return self.__trans.open()
+
+  def listen(self):
+    '''Invoke the underlying transport's listen() method'''
+    self.__trans.listen()
+
+  def accept(self):
+    '''Accept connections on the underlying transport'''
+    return self.__trans.accept()
+
+  def close(self):
+    '''Close the underlying transport,'''
+    self._reinit_buffers()
+    self._init_zlib()
+    return self.__trans.close()
+
+  def read(self, sz):
+    '''
+    Read up to sz bytes from the decompressed bytes buffer, and
+    read from the underlying transport if the decompression
+    buffer is empty.
+    '''
+    ret = self.__rbuf.read(sz)
+    if len(ret) > 0:
+      return ret
+    # keep reading from transport until something comes back
+    while True:
+      if self.readComp(sz):
+        break
+    ret = self.__rbuf.read(sz)
+    return ret
+
+  def readComp(self, sz):
+    '''
+    Read compressed data from the underlying transport, then
+    decompress it and append it to the internal StringIO read buffer
+    '''
+    zbuf = self.__trans.read(sz)
+    zbuf = self._zcomp_read.unconsumed_tail + zbuf
+    buf = self._zcomp_read.decompress(zbuf)
+    self.bytes_in += len(zbuf)
+    self.bytes_in_comp += len(buf)
+    old = self.__rbuf.read()
+    self.__rbuf = StringIO(old + buf)
+    if len(old) + len(buf) == 0:
+      return False
+    return True
+
+  def write(self, buf):
+    '''
+    Write some bytes, putting them into the internal write
+    buffer for eventual compression.
+    '''
+    self.__wbuf.write(buf)
+
+  def flush(self):
+    '''
+    Flush any queued up data in the write buffer and ensure the
+    compression buffer is flushed out to the underlying transport
+    '''
+    wout = self.__wbuf.getvalue()
+    if len(wout) > 0:
+      zbuf = self._zcomp_write.compress(wout)
+      self.bytes_out += len(wout)
+      self.bytes_out_comp += len(zbuf)
+    else:
+      zbuf = ''
+    ztail = self._zcomp_write.flush(zlib.Z_SYNC_FLUSH)
+    self.bytes_out_comp += len(ztail)
+    if (len(zbuf) + len(ztail)) > 0:
+      self.__wbuf = StringIO()
+      self.__trans.write(zbuf + ztail)
+    self.__trans.flush()
+
+  @property
+  def cstringio_buf(self):
+    '''Implement the CReadableTransport interface'''
+    return self.__rbuf
+
+  def cstringio_refill(self, partialread, reqlen):
+    '''Implement the CReadableTransport interface for refill'''
+    retstring = partialread
+    if reqlen < self.DEFAULT_BUFFSIZE:
+      retstring += self.read(self.DEFAULT_BUFFSIZE)
+    while len(retstring) < reqlen:
+      retstring += self.read(reqlen - len(retstring))
+    self.__rbuf = StringIO(retstring)
+    return self.__rbuf
diff --git a/lib/py/src/transport/__init__.py b/lib/py/src/transport/__init__.py
index 02c6048..46e54fe 100644
--- a/lib/py/src/transport/__init__.py
+++ b/lib/py/src/transport/__init__.py
@@ -17,4 +17,4 @@
 # under the License.
 #
 
-__all__ = ['TTransport', 'TSocket', 'THttpClient']
+__all__ = ['TTransport', 'TSocket', 'THttpClient','TZlibTransport']