This is what I have done so far... 1. Used YOU to update everything including several YAST modules. 2. Deleted both ethernet cards and set them up again. No joy. 3. Went out turned computer off. Came back turned it on. Nothing changed (good). 4. In frustration deleted both ethernet cards AGAIN in the beast. Re configured them both on the network 192.168.15.0. (.2 and .3 respectively) No joy I couldn't ping my laptop. But I could ping Windows 2000 running in VMWare which I hadn't been able to do before. 5. Swapped the cables for the lan and the dsl (ie changed which ethX each was plugged into). Hey presto I could now see the LAN. But I can't access the internet. Out of desperation I ping 192.168.99.99 (which I've found in KInternet's log file). The dsl connection springs to life and I can access the net. route gives the following output: 61.48.57.254 * 255.255.255.255 UH 0 0 0 ppp0 192.168.22.0 * 255.255.255.0 U 0 0 0 eth1 192.168.15.0 * 255.255.255.0 U 0 0 0 eth0 loopback * 255.0.0.0 U 0 0 0 lo default 61.48.57.254 0.0.0.0 UG 0 0 0 ppp0 I check and I can stil ping laptop on the LAN. Looks like progress. A little while later my dsl connection times out and once again there is no automatic connection unless I ping 192.168.99.99 Whilst I'm not connected the route command just gives me: beast:/home/jsc # route Kernel IP routing table Destination Gateway Genmask Flags Metric Ref Use Iface And hangs there until I issue ctrl+Z. Is this normal? It seems to me that when the dsl connection comes down the routing table isn't being written properly. Anyone know what I should do? Jethro