Thanks for the post

Yup, it's a normal socket connection, yet using the timeout(val) method does not work:

$socket->timeout(300);

man IO::Socket(3pm)
...
timeout([VAL])
  Set or get the timeout value associated with this socket. If called 
+without any arguments then the current setting is returned. If called
+ with an argument the current setting is changed and the previous val
+ue returned.
[download]

Maybe because I'm using IO::Socket::SSL?

Looks like I'm stuck sending the keepalive packet, or using the state approach with a uuid as suggested by sundialsvc4

Update 1:

Looks like IO::Socket::SSL inherits from IO::Socket::INET, not IO::Socket like I thought. IO::Socket::INET provides Timeout in it's new() constructor, which... time passes while henzen tests...

...makes no difference whatsoever.