Hi

The *only* snag is that after I rebooted the machine, my settings don't stay. Can anyone help me with that?!?

I can give you a general view of what is involved. The details will depend upon the distro (I am familiar only with SuSE). Basically, when the beast boots the first thing it runs is a program init which is the mother of all programs. Init takes its clues from configuration files in the directory /etc/init.d where there are both files, like network the one we are interested in here, and directories named rc0.d through rc6.d. These subdirectories go with each runlevel. For example, when switching to runlevel 3, init is interested in rc3.d. If you look in rc3.d (try it!) you will see two set of files --- one set starts with K and other with S. These instruct init to run all the files with a K label and then all those with an S label. Thus the K's (kill) give init a clean slate and the S's (start) set up the new arrangement. For the case of shutting down and starting network stuff the K file will call the script network back up in /etc/init.d (remember there were files there) with the argument stop. On the other hand, if jumping to a runlevel where the network should be going, network will be called with the argument start. If you now go and look at the file /etc/init.d/network you will see a case selection with options start, stop, and others. Go take a look to get a feel for what is going on. Now, basically, what you want to do is add scripting to do what you have been doing manually. You can get the general idea by looking at the files already there to understand what is going on --- still the best way to start :-) ! Now, most distros do this all for you automatically through their configuration tools (like Yast --- yet another system tool --- in SuSE) and/or configuration files (SuSE has a master file /etc/rc.config where you and set parameters for a program SuSEconfig which then does all the dirty work behind the scenes). I do not know what distro you have nor if it were not SuSE would I be able to tell you what the configuration program is called (actually, I just remembered, I do know of one other --- Caldera has COAS). In any case, if you do not know what this general admin tool is for the distro you have, you can check the manual or, if that does not work, post to WLUG where I am sure someone will know about just about any distro out there :-) (I'll not be able to respond to this after today since I have to leave town tomorrow for a while.) Good luck doug