[H-GEN] Routing Problem

[Andrew Pullin]

Hi All,
    I am having a frustrating time getting a new server up and going. The
problem seems to be strange entries in the routing table that are being
automagically set, but I cannot identify from where, since I cannot find any
config file that would be automagically loaded.

    The server is a PII 266 with 64Mb RAM (I know - processing overkill and
memory starved, but it is only temporary). I have two 10/100 PCI Ethernet
cards, both RT8139 based (they were identical cards, but in the interests of
frustration, I lashed out and bought a different one to try and solve the
problem). These connect to a network switch and an ADSL router.

    The software is a minimal install RH 9.0 (OK so I know RH better than
any distro, it may not be the best, but I know it or thought I did). The
installation went fine, and both network cards were correctly detected, and
configured for a /28 subnet as follows:

    eth0    203.*.*.162 mask 255.255.255.240 bcast 203.*.*.175
    eth1    203.*.*.163 mask 255.255.255.240 bcast 203.*.*.175

the idea being, 162 connects to the ADSL modem configured as 161, and 163
being connected to the network switch and the box acting as a firewall
webserver.

ifconfig eth0 & eth1 both return the correct configuration and both cards
are at different addresses and irqs so no conflicts there.

Other config files are as such:

/etc/sysconfig/network
    NETWORKING=yes
    FORWARD_IPV4=yes
    HOSTNAME=machine.mydomain.com.au
    GATEWAY=203.*.*.161

/etc/sysctl.conf
    net.ipv4.ip_forward=1
    net.ipv4.ip_always_defrag=1

Now the frustrating part. I can ping both interfaces and the home network
from the firewall as I should be able to do. I can ssh into 162 ONLY which
is partially correct as the bridge is not yet set up, but I CANNOT ssh into
163. I have tried network cable swaps but to no avail. I have looked at the
default routing table set up by the machine, and there are some strange
entries I don't understand:

route -n

Dest                    Gateway        Genmask        Flags    Metric    REF
USE
203.*.*.160        0.0.0.0     255.255.255.240    U        0            0
0        eth1
203.*.*.160        0.0.0.0     255.255.255.240    U        0            0
0        eth1
169.254.0.0        0.0.0.0     255.255.0.0            U        0
0        0        eth1
127.0.0.0            0.0.0.0     255.0.0.0                U        0
0        0        lo
0.0.0.0        203.*.*.161     0.0.0.0                    UG     0
0        0        eth1

As you can see, there are two things that jump right out: where is eth0
interface that is correctly set up elsewhere?, and where did 169.254.0.0
come from? What is stranger is that when I manually delete everything except
lo and create the correct entries and interfaces, eth0 still dissapears. The
routing table I was expecting should look something like this:

Dest                    Gateway        Genmask        Flags    Metric    REF
USE
203.*.*.162        0.0.0.0     255.255.255.240    U        0            0
0        eth0
203.*.*.163        0.0.0.0     255.255.255.240    U        0            0
0        eth1
127.0.0.0            0.0.0.0     255.0.0.0                U        0
0        0        lo
0.0.0.0        203.*.*.161     0.0.0.0                    UG     0
0        0        eth0

when I hook up the bridge, 162 and 163 should dissapear and be replaced by:

203.*.*.162        0.0.0.0     255.255.255.240    U        0            0
0        br0

OK, what I need help with is, where are the config files that would produce
the broken routing table, or how do I fix it. I know RH 7.2 has specific
files that set up the routing table in /etc/sysconfig, but RH 9 doesn't seem
to have this file.

    I have been stewing over this a week now and just CANNOT get it going. I
have RTFMed all sorts of FMs, but still no joy. Your help would be greatly
appreciated.
    TIA,
        Cheers!
            Andrew