Julian, I did not understand what you meant by this paragraph. "Now, for the twist. For development and testing, I assigned an ip address and gateway to the bridge. I need to be able for a "non-it" person to install this box without having to set it up at all , so it cannot have an ip address assigned, as it *may* be in use somewhere else on the lan or router." Did your bridge + transparent proxy work without you adding an ip[\and route] to the bridge interface? I mean, before the "twist". Skept