diff --git a/.cirrus.yml b/.cirrus.yml
index d26c1ec112..fe09ea9880 100644
--- a/.cirrus.yml
+++ b/.cirrus.yml
@@ -123,6 +123,9 @@ gating_task:
 
     timeout_in: 20m
 
+    networking_script:  # Don't bother going further if something is down
+        - 'while read host port; do nc -zv -w 13 $host $port || exit 1; done < ${CIRRUS_WORKING_DIR}/${SCRIPT_BASE}/required_host_ports.txt'
+
     gate_script:
         # N/B: entrypoint.sh resets $GOSRC (same as make clean)
         - '/usr/local/bin/entrypoint.sh install.tools |& ${TIMESTAMP}'
diff --git a/contrib/cirrus/required_host_ports.txt b/contrib/cirrus/required_host_ports.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000000..9248e497a2
--- /dev/null
+++ b/contrib/cirrus/required_host_ports.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,4 @@
+github.com 22
+docker.io 443
+quay.io 443
+registry.fedoraproject.org 443