# network card status at boot no carrier but active after boot



## Crotalus (Aug 27, 2011)

The other forums I have used seem to have disappeared so this is the first one for me on this one. I hope I put this in the correct place.

Question;
Why at boot is there no connection but after boot there is?

I was running FreeBSD 6.2-RELEASE #1: when I had a major hard drive meltdown. So instead of restoring I loaded FreeBSD 8.2-RELEASE #0: AMD64 version. On boot the ntpdate was not working. After some research I found this from the dmesg file.
My network card,
	
	



```
nfe0: <NVIDIA nForce4 CK804 MCP9 Networking Adapter> port 0xb400-0xb407 mem 0xfe029000-0xfe029fff irq 23 at device 10.0 on pci0
miibus0: <MII bus> on nfe0
ciphy0: <Cicada CS8201 10/100/1000TX PHY> PHY 1 on miibus0
ciphy0:  10baseT, 10baseT-FDX, 10baseT-FDX-flow, 100baseTX, 100baseTX-FDX, 100baseTX-FDX-flow, 1000baseT, 1000baseT-master, 1000baseT-FDX, 1000
baseT-FDX-master, 1000baseT-FDX-flow, 1000baseT-FDX-flow-master, auto, auto-flow
nfe0: Ethernet address: 00:50:8d:81:a9:4a
nfe0: [FILTER]
```
From boot,
	
	



```
Setting hostname: Prometheus.Group1
.
Starting Network: lo0 nfe0.
lo0: flags=8049<UP,LOOPBACK,RUNNING,MULTICAST> metric 0 mtu 16384
        options=3<RXCSUM,TXCSUM>
        inet6 fe80::1%lo0 prefixlen 64 scopeid 0x3 
        inet6 ::1 prefixlen 128 
        inet 127.0.0.1 netmask 0xff000000 
        nd6 options=3<PERFORMNUD,ACCEPT_RTADV>
nfe0: flags=8843<UP,BROADCAST,RUNNING,SIMPLEX,MULTICAST> metric 0 mtu 1500
        options=8210b<RXCSUM,TXCSUM,VLAN_MTU,TSO4,WOL_MAGIC,LINKSTATE>
        ether 00:50:8d:81:a9:4a
        inet 192.168.20.7 netmask 0xffffff00 broadcast 192.168.20.255
        media: Ethernet autoselect (none)
        status: no carrier
add net default: gateway 192.168.20.1
Starting devd.
```
After boot this is the result,
	
	



```
$ ifconfig
nfe0: flags=8843<UP,BROADCAST,RUNNING,SIMPLEX,MULTICAST> metric 0 mtu 1500
        options=8210b<RXCSUM,TXCSUM,VLAN_MTU,TSO4,WOL_MAGIC,LINKSTATE>
        ether 00:50:8d:81:a9:4a
        inet 192.168.20.7 netmask 0xffffff00 broadcast 192.168.20.255
        media: Ethernet autoselect (1000baseT <full-duplex>)
        status: active
plip0: flags=8810<POINTOPOINT,SIMPLEX,MULTICAST> metric 0 mtu 1500
lo0: flags=8049<UP,LOOPBACK,RUNNING,MULTICAST> metric 0 mtu 16384
        options=3<RXCSUM,TXCSUM>
        inet6 fe80::1%lo0 prefixlen 64 scopeid 0x3 
        inet6 ::1 prefixlen 128 
        inet 127.0.0.1 netmask 0xff000000 
        nd6 options=3<PERFORMNUD,ACCEPT_RTADV>
$
```
Also,
	
	



```
$ ifconfig -m nfe0
nfe0: flags=8843<UP,BROADCAST,RUNNING,SIMPLEX,MULTICAST> metric 0 mtu 1500
        options=8210b<RXCSUM,TXCSUM,VLAN_MTU,TSO4,WOL_MAGIC,LINKSTATE>
        capabilities=8210b<RXCSUM,TXCSUM,VLAN_MTU,TSO4,WOL_MAGIC,LINKSTATE>
        ether 00:50:8d:81:a9:4a
        inet 192.168.20.7 netmask 0xffffff00 broadcast 192.168.20.255
        media: Ethernet autoselect (1000baseT <full-duplex>)
        status: active
        supported media:
                media autoselect mediaopt flowcontrol
                media autoselect
                media 1000baseT mediaopt full-duplex,flowcontrol,master
                media 1000baseT mediaopt full-duplex,flowcontrol
                media 1000baseT mediaopt full-duplex,master
                media 1000baseT mediaopt full-duplex
                media 1000baseT mediaopt master
                media 1000baseT
                media 100baseTX mediaopt full-duplex,flowcontrol
                media 100baseTX mediaopt full-duplex
                media 100baseTX
                media 10baseT/UTP mediaopt full-duplex,flowcontrol
                media 10baseT/UTP mediaopt full-duplex
                media 10baseT/UTP
$
```
Running ntpdate works,
	
	



```
$ su
Password:
Prometheus# ntpdate -v time.nist.gov
26 Aug 15:41:05 ntpdate[1172]: ntpdate 4.2.4p5-a (1)
26 Aug 15:41:07 ntpdate[1172]: step time server 192.43.244.18 offset 2.027693 sec
Prometheus#
```

I can not figure out what is going on here. It is the same computer, new hard drive same cables, and same switch. The switch is a D-Link DGS-1210-24 managed switch. There has been no changes to the configuration on it. There is the new operating system that is different. I installed it on a brand new drive out of the box. The only thing that I have gleaned from searching for the problem is that the cable and/or the port on the switch is bad. But each one of those was never a connection to the network. I have a good connection. I have tried a different cable and used different ports with the same result. It seems that there is a delay connecting now. I could put in a start-up script to set the time, but it would be a work around while the problem would still exist.

Any ideas of what is going on?

Keith


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## wblock@ (Aug 27, 2011)

Network drivers in newer versions of FreeBSD may be different, but there's also been a change to asynchronous DHCP by default.  When dhclient(8) is run by the rc.d scripts, it doesn't wait for a lease, which could slow down the whole startup.

Some network cards aren't up in time for network clients like ntpdate.  To go back to the old synchronous behavior, change the DHCP line in /etc/rc.conf:

```
ifconfig_nfe0="SYNCDHCP"
```


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## Crotalus (Aug 27, 2011)

wblock,

Thank you for the quick response. It appears that I was looking up the wrong tree. I made the changes and it worked. However it created another problem. `# telnet` would not work, it would not connect to the server and I have at this time no idea why. My DHCP server is in my router a Linksys BESFR41. 

My FreeBSD box in the basement where I use it to store videos, pictures, backups of the FreeBSD files and the Window machines that I, my wife and the kids use, and my wife's embroidery files she has created and obtained from other sources. My family has access to the shared files by mapping a network file. I never go down there unless it is necessary. I have software from VanDyke called Secure FTP that I use on a Windows machine to access the FreeBSD server, so I need the telnet use.

One step forward, two steps back!

Keith


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## wblock@ (Aug 27, 2011)

Consider ssh and sftp instead of telnet and FTP.  I think there's an sftp client for Windows, but am too lazy to look.

As to why it stopped working, don't know.  Got a different address from DHCP?  Set the DHCP server to assign a static address via MAC address of the card, or just statically assign an address in /etc/rc.conf.


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## SirDice (Aug 29, 2011)

wblock said:
			
		

> I think there's an sftp client for Windows, but am too lazy to look.


WinSCP, works nicely together with PuTTY.


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