It is my understanding that, with ajp13, restarting Tomcat requires restarting Apache. With ajp12, restarting Tomcat did not require restarting Apache. I assume that this stems from the fact that, with ajp12, a connection was made for each request, while with ajp13 the connection between Tomcat and Apache stays open. I have been experimenting with restarting Tomcat but not Apache under ajp13. When I do a restart, I get 500 errors for a little while, but it does eventually reconect. My question is, will ajp13 ever be modified so that it will be possible to restart Tomcat without having to restart Apache, and have the connection reestablish itself within a couple of seconds at the most? Being able to restart Tomcat without restarting Apache becomes very important when using virtual hosts in a production environment. Let's say you have one machine running Apache+Tomcat. It serves 10 virtual hosts, each with a critical production application (e.g. app1.domain, app2.domain). Each virtual domain/application runs in its own JRE (i.e. Tomcat instance). If there is a need to bring one application down, to update code or make some kind of change, it means notifying all the users of that application beforehand. If you can restart Tomcat without restarting Apache, then that is all you have to do. However, if you also have to restart Apache, then all 10 applications must be brought down! This means notifying users of all 10 applications and unnecessary downtime for critical applications. One could argue that "critical application" means it needs to run on its own Tomcat+Apache setup.. but doesn't this halfway defeat the purpose of using virtual hosts and multiple Tomcat instances? This kind of configuration is great for saving money and resources by grouping applications together on a single server. Should I post this request to the Tomcat developer list? I really am desperate for this feature in ajp13. I don't know much about network programming, but I'm hopeful there is some way to close the socket connection gracefully when a shutdown of the Tomcat side is performed, and send the Apache side back into waiting for a connection again. I could just stick with ajp12, but I lose the increased speed and stability. Plus, if I need to do SSL (which I need to do soon), I am in big trouble. I'm wondering if anyone else feels the same way I do. -Scott -- Scott Tatum | [EMAIL PROTECTED] Senior Applications Developer, Special Projects WorldCom | http://www.wcom.com/