Hi, On Mon, 8 Mar 2004, Michel Maria-Sube wrote: Is there a hub or switch in between these two? If not, you'll need to use a crossover cable, otherwise straight cables will be ok (or if your NICs can recognize inverted signals, which is the case for new Apple machines for instance). I hope you're using addresses from private IP space (typically 192.168.x.y or 10.a.b.c (or that 3rd net I can never remember)). I'd try with the following: PC1: ifconfig eth0 192.168.0.1 netmask 255.255.255.0 broadcast 192.168.0.255 up PC2: ifconfig eth0 192.168.0.2 netmask 255.255.255.0 broadcast 192.168.0.255 up This should already be sufficient for connectivity between the two machines. Depending on the distro, you can adapt the values for the interfaces in /etc/sysconfig/network/ifcfg/eth0 and just use "ifup eth0" (or something quite close to this). Normally you won't need to fiddle with ARP addresses, unless you're doing more funky stuff (virtual interfaces and such), it's quasi all handled automagically. ifconfig and route resp. "ip route" should be all you'll need (actually, ifconfig alone should do) for such a simple case. Have you checked the LEDs on the NICs? Are the correct driver modules loaded for your NICs (lsmod)? Does ifconfig eth0 succeed without error message? I'd guess the cable is the problem. Greets & hth, Eric