Point of correction, slbd didn't have the ability to ping IP addresses.
Good call.
You might check the code in CVS, it should compile and work on 3.9.
Your right, I didn't notice it was being maintained. Thanks for the pointer, and thanks so much for keeping it maintained (I just noticed you were the one who updated it in CVS). Back to the original question; it looks slbd would be a good and elegant way to achieve what your looking to do. Just grab it from the sourceforge CVS repository. Kevin