The present invention relates to a method and an apparatus for failure recovery in a network system, wherein a linked list is created, where each network node knows the network address of its neighbor node in at least one direction, wherein each network node sends a beacon to its neighbor node and has its neighbor node acknowledge receipt of the beacon, and wherein a network node checks with a switch device the port status of a port to which a neighbor node that has failed is connected in order to identify a replacement node.