When pulling from a non hg repository URL (e.g. http://www.kernel.org/hg) you geta pretty obscure error (zlib: uknown compression type). The attached patch modifies hgweb.py and hg.py to supply and check a 'Content-type: application/hg-0.1' HTTP header for the branches, between and changegroup commands, so that we know it's a proper hg repo before snarfing the input. Comments appreciated!

#!/usr/bin/env python
#
# An example CGI script to use hgweb, edit as necessary

import cgitb, os, sys
cgitb.enable()

# sys.path.insert(0, "/path/to/python/lib") # if not a system-wide install
from mercurial import hgweb

h = hgweb.hgweb("/path/to/repo", "repository name")
h.run()