Can Squid do this?

[Benjamin J. Weiss]

Hi, y'all!

Before I go into hours and hours of research, just thought I'd see if 
anybody'd already done anything like this, or even knows if it can be done.

I've got a couple of java app servers grabbing data off of an oracle 
server (RHEL AS 2.1).  The problem is that I have to take down the app 
servers and the oracle server periodically for maintenance (don't ask).  
Now, when this happens our users who ignore the maintenance notices get 
no response, and complain.

What I'd thought of doing was putting a squip proxy in front of the web 
app servers, and having the web traffic hit it instead, and having it 
query the app servers.  Then, somehow, if the app servers are down, I 
want the proxy server to serve up a "down for maintenance" page.  
Ideally, I should be able to check the oracle server independently of 
the web app server.

Is this possible?

Thanks!

Ben