🚀 go-pugleaf

Hi,
	I have a problem that I am hoping someone out there can help 
me solve. I have a small network consisting of the following

1. A 486 SX 33Mhz w/a 3COM 3c509 (ISA bus) Ethernet card
2. A Pentium 120Mhz w/a 3COM 3c590 (PCI bus) Ethernet card
3. A 6 port hub
4. An Ascend 25 router.


-----------                -----------      -------------
| 486 SX  | --------|------| HUB     |------| Ascend 25 |
-----------         |      -----------      -------------
                    |
                    |
-----------         |
|Pentium  | --------|
-----------


I wanted to connect the two computers to the hub and then the hub,
in turn, would be connected to the router. After which the router
is connected to the ISDN provider.

Ok -

The people who provided the ISDN said that they could connect the
two machines together as well. So - they did but the problem is
that the two machines will talk to each other *only* when the 
ISDN line is up (I signed up for dial-up ISDN).

The second thing is that I wanted to have the option of
having the 486 SX machine come up in stand alone function. In
other words, I would like that 486 not be connected to the network.
When this machine is functioning "stand alone", I want to be
able to use the ppp0 interface to dial out to another provider.

Reason:    
	The Pentium machine is to be accessed by the outside
world all of the time. The 486 SX machine and the Pentium
machine are to be connected only when backups are needed.
(The tape backup is on the 486 SX machine and I was thinking
that I could remote mount the disks on the Pentium machine
and then back them up).
	While I am on the 486 SX Machine (in stand alone),
I might occasionally want to connect to the outside world
to download something. With ppp0, I can start the connection,
get what I need, and then disconnect it by killing the process.

Also, the ISDN address is static, the PPP0 address is assigned
dynamically, I thought that people would be less likely to
be able to ransack the 486SX machine if it (the machine) was
associated with an address that is assigned dynamically. Additionally,
this provider offers newsgroups, shell, mail, etc. while the ISDN
provider offers ISDN *only*.


     | ppp0 (IP address assigned from provider is dynamic)
     |
-----------                -----------      -------------
| 486 SX  |         |------| HUB     |------| Ascend 25 |
-----------         |      -----------      -------------
                    |
                    |
-----------         |
|Pentium  | --------|
-----------

One of the installation people said that I could just reboot
the system and choose a kernel that does not have the
3c509 card defined as part of it - but I cant get the 
ppp0 interface working after doing this.

After doing lots of testing, I have found that the reason
why the two machines will not talk to each is other is a
routing problem.

I dont know if it is possible for it (the routing table) to 
be set up to talk to two 2 different providers - any help,
hints or advice on this would be *greatly* appreciatd :)

Sorry about the length - I just wanted to be clear. 

TIA

Casey