Found this good article by Mark Huot regarding using curl to check websocket servers at http://www.thenerdary.net/post/24889968081/debugging-websockets-with-curl
curl -i -N -H "Connection: Upgrade" -H "Upgrade: websocket" -H "Host: echo.websocket.org" -H "Origin: http://www.websocket.org" http://echo.websocket.org