diff --git a/README.md b/README.md
index 2f608b81b..1e658d180 100644
--- a/README.md
+++ b/README.md
@@ -1,6 +1,7 @@
 to prepare a new host:
 
 ```
+sudo apt-get install software-properties-common
 sudo apt-add-repository -y ppa:nginx/stable
 sudo apt-get update
 sudo apt-get install -y git python-virtualenv python-dev phantomjs 
diff --git a/buildserver/buildserver.py b/buildserver/buildserver.py
index 82cb24ac7..ebd039cdc 100644
--- a/buildserver/buildserver.py
+++ b/buildserver/buildserver.py
@@ -124,7 +124,7 @@ def build_image(build_dir, tag_name, num_steps, result_object):
   except Exception as e:
     logger.exception('Exception when processing request.')
     result_object['status'] = 'error'
-    result_object['message'] = e.message
+    result_object['message'] = str(e.message)
 
 
 MIME_PROCESSORS = {
diff --git a/requirements-nover.txt b/requirements-nover.txt
index a12714454..8d95e3e48 100644
--- a/requirements-nover.txt
+++ b/requirements-nover.txt
@@ -15,4 +15,5 @@ beautifulsoup4
 marisa-trie
 apscheduler
 python-daemon
-paramiko
\ No newline at end of file
+paramiko
+python-digitalocean
\ No newline at end of file
diff --git a/requirements.txt b/requirements.txt
index 171930241..494ed9198 100644
--- a/requirements.txt
+++ b/requirements.txt
@@ -12,6 +12,7 @@ beautifulsoup4==4.3.2
 blinker==1.3
 boto==2.15.0
 distribute==0.6.34
+ecdsa==0.10
 eventlet==0.14.0
 greenlet==0.4.1
 gunicorn==18.0
@@ -19,10 +20,13 @@ itsdangerous==0.23
 lockfile==0.9.1
 marisa-trie==0.5.1
 mixpanel-py==3.0.0
+paramiko==1.12.0
 peewee==2.1.4
 py-bcrypt==0.4
+pycrypto==2.6.1
 python-daemon==1.6
 python-dateutil==2.1
+python-digitalocean==0.5
 requests==2.0.0
 six==1.4.1
 stripe==1.9.8
diff --git a/workers/dockerfilebuild.py b/workers/dockerfilebuild.py
index 2f7aea2da..5112145b0 100644
--- a/workers/dockerfilebuild.py
+++ b/workers/dockerfilebuild.py
@@ -43,7 +43,7 @@ def retry_command(to_call, args=[], kwargs={}, retries=5, period=5):
 
 
 def get_status(url):
-  return requests.get(url).json()['status']
+  return retry_command(requests.get, [url]).json()['status']
 
 
 def babysit_builder(request):
@@ -112,8 +112,10 @@ def babysit_builder(request):
     ssh_client = paramiko.SSHClient()
     ssh_client.set_missing_host_key_policy(paramiko.AutoAddPolicy())
 
+    logger.debug('Connecting to droplet through ssh at ip: %s' %
+                 droplet.ip_address)
     retry_command(ssh_client.connect, [droplet.ip_address, 22, 'root'],
-                  {'look_for_keys': False, 
+                  {'look_for_keys': False, 'timeout': 10.0,
                    'key_filename': app.config['DO_SSH_PRIVATE_KEY_FILENAME']})
 
     # Load the node with the pull token