When handling an incoming request, the default http server hard-codes a two minute timeout: https://github.com/joyent/node/blob/master/lib/http.js#L1800

I agree with this policy, but it should be documented somewhere. My suggestion is to make a note around ## Class: http.ServerResponse in http.markdown, although to defeat the timeout you have to use the fact that the response object is a net object with a connection, so you can do res.connection.setTimeout(0)