Just to make sure I know what's going on... According to the docs, a server that does not respond to a request within the response_window (default: 20 sec) is considered a "zombie", and becomes eligible for the status checker. If no responses are received within the zombie_period (default: 40 sec), it is marked "dead". Once it's dead, it needs to respond to num_answers_to_alive requests before being marked as "alive". Assumign the zombie_period and check_interval are the defaults (40 sec, 30 sec), then the status checker would presumably run at least once during the zombie_period and bring a server back to life before it is marked dead. So here's the question... If the FR server receives no requests, then nothing gets forwarded to the home server. Does this scenario fall under "does not respond to a request within the response_window"? That is, should a quiet server constantly toggle in and out of zombie state? If so, then "zombie" is not really indicative of a problem and I can safely ignore the scenario. Hopefully this makes sense, and is useful to anyone else burrowing through the guts of the proxy status mechanism. Thanks! Norman Elton