A ring network comprising: a plurality of switching nodes (18a, 18b, 18c, 18d, 18e) providing Layer 2 functionality to forward data frames between ports, each switching node having at least a first and second port connectable to network media, the switching nodes arranged in a network ring wherein the first and second ports of each switching node connect to different switching nodes of the network ring and wherein at least one of the switching nodes is an active ring supervisor and the other switching nodes are ring devices, wherein the active ring supervisor is configured to: transmit a data collection frame out of one port for traversing the ring, wherein the data collection frame transmits through each ring device (18b-e) in an order in which they are connected, and wherein each ring device provides at least one of its MAC address and its IP address to the active ring supervisor in response to the data collection frame; and maintain a data structure listing each device on the ring, wherein the data structure indicates the order in which each device is connected on the ring, and wherein the data structure indicates the at least one of a MAC address and an IP address for each device, and wherein the active ring supervisor operates as a Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol, DHCP, server and allocates an IP address to each device on the ring. a plurality of switching nodes (18a, 18b, 18c, 18d, 18e) providing Layer 2 functionality to forward data frames between ports, each switching node having at least a first and second port connectable to network media, the switching nodes arranged in a network ring wherein the first and second ports of each switching node connect to different switching nodes of the network ring and wherein at least one of the switching nodes is an active ring supervisor and the other switching nodes are ring devices, wherein the active ring supervisor is configured to: transmit a data collection frame out of one port for traversing the ring, wherein the data collection frame transmits through each ring device (18b-e) in an order in which they are connected, and wherein each ring device provides at least one of its MAC address and its IP address to the active ring supervisor in response to the data collection frame; and maintain a data structure listing each device on the ring, wherein the data structure indicates the order in which each device is connected on the ring, and wherein the data structure indicates the at least one of a MAC address and an IP address for each device, and transmit a data collection frame out of one port for traversing the ring, wherein the data collection frame transmits through each ring device (18b-e) in an order in which they are connected, and wherein each ring device provides at least one of its MAC address and its IP address to the active ring supervisor in response to the data collection frame; and maintain a data structure listing each device on the ring, wherein the data structure indicates the order in which each device is connected on the ring, and wherein the data structure indicates the at least one of a MAC address and an IP address for each device, and wherein the active ring supervisor operates as a Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol, DHCP, server and allocates an IP address to each device on the ring.