Two identical usb networking cards problem

[David Fokkema <dfokkema@ileos.nl>]

Hi group,

I googled / searched the list around a lot but couldn't find what the
cause of my problem might be...

I installed debian etch on an NSLU2. It has an internal network card
which is brought up automatically at boot time. I have two additional
usb network cards attached to a hub which are identical. Only one of
them is brought up at boot time. Which one, that is (well, seems to be,
anyway) completely random, :-/

My /etc/network/interfaces:
# This file describes the network interfaces available on your system
# and how to activate them. For more information, see interfaces(5).

# The loopback network interface
auto lo
iface lo inet loopback

# The primary network interface
allow-hotplug eth0
iface eth0 inet static
        address 192.168.20.10
        netmask 255.255.255.0

allow-hotplug eth1
iface eth1 inet static
        address 192.168.31.10
        netmask 255.255.255.0

allow-hotplug eth2
iface eth2 inet dhcp
        pre-up ethtool -s eth2 autoneg off speed 10


If I change the allow-hotplug to auto, my problem is solved. So why this
mail? Just because I feel that etch is logging way to little information
because:

1. I can't seem to find in the logs when and by what daemon / script
eth0 is brought up. It is always brought up. No logs whatsoever.
2. I had to edit /lib/udev/net.agent to let it log which interface it
was bringing up. I already set a log level of debug
in /etc/udev/udev.conf but that is not enough.
3. It seems that udev is not involved, however, it must be udev which is
changing interface names with its persistent-net.rules since my logs
tell me that the asix driver loads eth1 and eth2 with some mac
addresses, but after I bring up the missing interface, the names are
swapped according to their mac addresses. However, I can't seem to find
that in the logs.
4. /var/log/boot tells me ifup -a is run, however, I'd like to know
which interfaces ifup is bringing up. No log...
5. It is not ifup -a which is bringing up the one usb interface because
ifdown eth1 and eth2 and then ifup -a -n shows me ifup has no intention
of bringing up either eth1 or eth2.

My question: how can I find out which daemon/script is bringing up my
two out of three interfaces and how can I make sure it brings up all
three (without resorting to auto lines, apparently allow-hotplug should
work).

I feel kinda lost...

Thanks in advance,

David