This was a vestige from when we used to need the unittest2 library for pre-2.7
compatibility. Now that we require Python 2.7, we aren't using that library
and this indirection wasn't doing any good.
There was a problem with the authentication header in the latest
versions. The header creation function changed to fix that. Username and
passwort authentication should work again.
The `host` config variable takes now a full hostname. For example
`http://localhost` instead of just `localhost`. This makes it easier to
use https hosts.
