I've started looking at adding "ping" support for mod_proxy_http to complement whats in mod_proxy_ajp... The idea is to send a simple OPTIONS * to the backend and hope for a reply.
The rub is that I've been working on 2 separate implementations: one talks direct to the socket and the other basically tries to do what ap_proxy_http_request() and ap_proxy_http_process_response() does, as far as using brigades, etc... The former is much further along, btw. In any case, both implementations can have what I can envision as some "weird effects" as far as how they should actually work in the real world. For example, should it honor force-proxy-request-1.0 and/or proxy-nokeepalive, and, if so, how does that affect the subsequent "real" request... In other words, it's not as clean as AJP which has a "real" ping. And all this is wondering whether or not it's really useful in the 1st place... So before I go any further, any comments or ideas on whether is is even a Good Idea or not... I'm starting to have 2nd thoughts :)
