# NFE0 down during boot



## bugboy (Aug 8, 2010)

I use an integrated NVIDIA nForce MCP77 networking adapter, but I have some problems when booting the system. When the network adapter is configured (from /etc/rc.d/netif), then the network is still down. Setting the computer's date/time fails, because it cannot resolve the NTP host and some other daemons fail as well.

When I add a sleep of 4 seconds after the network is started, then I can see that the network state becomes up and everything works fine. Is there a bug in the boot process or am I doing something wrong?


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## wblock@ (Aug 8, 2010)

Add "SYNC" to the DHCP call in rc.conf:

```
ifconfig_nfe0="SYNCDHCP"
```

Startup will then wait for DHCP to issue a lease before continuing.


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## kpa (Aug 8, 2010)

Why isn't SYNCDHCP the default? It doesn't make much sense to start network services before network interfaces have been fully configured. Or am I missing something?


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## wblock@ (Aug 8, 2010)

kpa said:
			
		

> Why isn't SYNCDHCP the default? It doesn't make much sense to start network services before network interfaces have been fully configured. Or am I missing something?



Some (many? most?) systems can get a lease in time to not need to wait, or have other services starting that don't care.  That makes for quicker startup.

I agree that SYNCDHCP would be a safer default.


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## bugboy (Aug 8, 2010)

The SYNCDHCP fixes the problem indeed. Thanks very much, because this is much more elegant than sleeping for a while. I would also suggest to make this the default or to write a line to rc.conf how to fix this issue. I did search for a solution, but I only got one via this forum.


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## yongari@ (Aug 16, 2010)

FYI: This is not a driver bug. Establishing a valid link with link partner will take time and sometimes it can take more than 10 seconds. However most start-up scripts are not prepared to handle this. Check mailing list archives for the issue and possible solutions.


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## dalys (Aug 25, 2010)

Made a pretty standard install a couple of days ago and did run into a lot of problems with this as well. ntpd and various other daemons and startup scripts fail as they can't resolve or connect to anything. In /var/log/messages I could see that all the scripts failed and a couple of seconds (~5-10) later the computer would get an IP address. After some googling and asking around I found this thread, and SYNCDHCP, that saved me.  The DHCP process seems to be rather slow on my net so I guess this is why I had these problems. But it would be nice with at least a note in rc.conf about DHCP/SYNCDHCP.


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