$re = '/^([^\s]+ ).*( .*)/m';
$str = 'tunnel4 connection to router 1 status
gig1/0/1 blah status
g2/0/1 foo bandwidth';
$subst = "$1router1$2";
$result = preg_replace($re, $subst, $str);
echo "The result of the substitution is ".$result;
Please keep in mind that these code samples are automatically generated and are not guaranteed to work. If you find any syntax errors, feel free to submit a bug report. For a full regex reference for PHP, please visit: http://php.net/manual/en/ref.pcre.php