Getting server status response from HTTP request

[Mike C]

First of all, I am a complete newbie to Python, but have been impressed 
with how easy the language has been to pick up.

I am trying to write a script that checks to see if the web / 
application server is up. I have the following code that works:

--
import httplib

try:
     httpobj = httplib.HTTPConnection('www.domain.com', 80)
     httpobj.connect();
     httpobj.putrequest('GET', '/foo/ping.cfm')
     httpobj.putheader('Accept', '*/*')
     httpobj.endheaders()

     reply = httpobj.getresponse()
     httpobj.close();

     if reply.status != 200:
     	print "There may be a problem with the server. Response Status :", 
reply.status
     else:
     	print "server is fine"
     	
except Exception:
     print "An exception occured"
--

I was curious if anyone had suggestions on a better way to do this. I 
tried to use urllin2, but could not figure out how to retrieve the 
status code.

mike c