npm install is unbelievably slow, fails in certain environments

[jmonster]

tl;dr something is up with npm and https.

I'm attempting to compose an iojs heroku buildpack :) but I'm encountering some interesting behavior.

1. On my local machine:
   I've built iojs and then, using the bundled version of npm, attempt to install an arbitrary module -- request. It takes a very very long time (minutes!) but it completes.
2. On a Heroku dyno:
   Ditto the above, but after a very long time, I get the following error(s)

155 info retry will retry, error on last attempt: Error: Hostname/IP doesn't match certificate's altnames: "Host: registry.npmjs.org. is not in the cert's altnames: DNS:npmjs.orgDNS:registry.npmjs.orgDNS:www.npmjs.org"

It gets more interesting. I've done the following, /iojs/bin/npm config set registry http://registry.npmjs.org/ and then npm install completes very quickly -- both locally and on Heroku. I've then explicitly set the registry to https on Heroku and ran npm install again -- no errors about Hostname/IP mismatch this time, but it takes a very long time for the installation command to complete.

Any insight or suggestions appreciated!

[rlidwka]

I believe it should be asked here:
https://github.com/npm/npm

[jmonster]

I considered that but since the same version of npm doesn't seem to have a problem on other versions of node I thought it may be applicable here.

[indutny]

Duplicate of #105