Swapping LAN cable still works!!! Why?
 

Hi guys,

I have a dual ethernet setup on my smp machine. Both ethernet cards are Fiber Optic base and are using pcnet32 drivers on 2.4.2-2 RHL kernel.

This was discovered when I connect the wrong cable to the wrong ethernet card. But it is still working. How is that so? I tried this on windows and this scenario is not possible to replicate. I have checked the routing and network setup on the Linux and found that it is in order. My setup is simple, two similar machine with dual ethernet connected directly to each other without any switch/hub. The configuration is a class B network.

Can anyone enlighten me why is this symptom possible on a Linux machine, even though this may not seem to be a problem. Thanks!

Does anyone who has dual ethernet configured for his machine has the same situation??