I need to take firebird (the Phoenyx box) down for a few minutes tomorrow
(Tuesday) night to install a second network interface card (NIC) so we can
hook the machine up to DSL.  (The machine acts as the firewall for our
private network, aka Karen and Carl's Windows boxes, so it has one NIC for
the private network and a second NIC to connect to the Internet.  It's the
same setup we have now, except the second "NIC" is a serial port attached
to a modem.)  The dedicated modem will remain attached and will be the
primary Internet gateway until we verify that DSL is working properly and
get nameservice redirected. 

It shouldn't take me more than a few minutes to plug in the new card, boot
to a DOS floppy and configure it (I hate Plug'n'Play, jumperless cards
that you can't set manually), and boot back up.  If I get the drivers
configured right before shutting down, I shouldn't even have to reboot
once it comes back up.  So we should be back on the net within twenty
minutes if things go smoothly.  

BUT, that's not the end of the story.  I'm then going to start monkeying
with the routing tables, which tell the machine where to send traffic for
what network.  At the moment the routing table just says 127.* is the
local network and everything else is directed at the gateway machine on
that network.  I'm going to try rerouting a small network block (our
upstream provider's) over the DSL interface.  If all goes well, you won't
notice a thing, even if the DSL doesn't work.  (Unless you happen to be a
SouthWind subscriber. :)  If something goes wrong, I may mess up routing
for everything and we'd effectively drop off the net.  If that happens, a
reboot will clear things up.  (I like Linux... I can muck with the routing
tables live, without having to reboot or anything.)  I *do* have some
experience with doing this on my personal box... I'd dial into work and
set up routing for work's network across the modem interface and
everything else directed at the gateway box.  Was simple and worked fine.  
Wish me luck.

-- --------------------------------------------------------------
Listowner tools are found at http://www.phoenyx.net/listowners