Non working NIC

[Doug Hardie]

> On 17 August 2016, at 18:22, Doug Hardie <doug at sermon-archive.info> wrote:
> 
>> 
>> On 17 August 2016, at 18:17, Doug Hardie <doug at sermon-archive.info> wrote:
>> 
>>> 
>>> On 17 August 2016, at 16:58, Polytropon <freebsd at edvax.de> wrote:
>>> 
>>> On Wed, 17 Aug 2016 16:32:20 -0700, Doug Hardie wrote:
>>>> 
>>>>> On 17 August 2016, at 16:05, Polytropon <freebsd at edvax.de> wrote:
>>>>> 
>>>>> On Wed, 17 Aug 2016 15:56:15 -0700, Doug Hardie wrote:
>>>>>> Added a new NIC (rl0).  Removed any reference to msk0 in rc.conf. 
>>>>>> Set rl0 for DHCP.  Same result, but some additional messages:
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> Starting Network: mske0
>>>>>> Starting Network: rl0
>>>>>> rl0: link state changed to up
>>>>>> Starting Network: lo0
>>>>>> Starting dhclient
>>>>>> rl0: not found
>>>>>> exiting
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> I am out of ideas here.  How can I figure out what is going on and correct it?
>>>>> 
>>>>> This almost looks like a problem with the contents of rc.conf.
>>>>> Can you show all the relevant lines?
>>>> 
>>>> I switched to a minimal rc.conf:
>>>> 
>>>> fsck_y_enable="YES"
>>>> background_fsck="NO"
>>>> dumpdev="NO"
>>>> hostname="steve"
>>>> ifconfig_rl0="DHCP"
>>>> sshd_enable="YES"
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> Same results.
>>> 
>>> No errors in this file. However it's interesting that (if I remember
>>> the thread so far) you reported the disappearing of a network interface
>>> with two different devices... however, there's something strange about
>>> the message: when I try to run dhclient for a network interface that
>>> does not exist on my system, I get this:
>>> 
>>> 	# dhclient fxp0
>>> 	ifconfig: interface fxp0 does not exist
>>> 	fxp0: not found
>>> 	exiting.
>>> 
>>> Note the ifconfig-related line. And if you run "ifconfig -a" and the
>>> interface _is_ listed, this makes the whole thing even more strange...
>> 
>> I created the following code:
>> 
>> #include <stdio.h>
>> #include <sys/types.h>
>> #include <sys/socket.h>
>> #include <ifaddrs.h>
>> 
>> int main (int argc, char *argv[])
>> {
>>       int rc;
>>       struct ifaddrs *ifi;
>> 
>>       rc = getifaddrs (&ifi);
>>       printf ("rc = %d\n", rc);
>> }
>> 
>> 
>> Compiled it with debugging and ran it.  after the getifaddrs call (it returned 0), there were 3 entries in the table.  All 3 have the name of "". 
>> 
>> I commented out the networking calls in rc.conf, rebooted the machine and then ran the code.  Same result.  I rebooted in single user mode and ran the code and the same results.  The boot process is not setting the interface names properly.  Whats even more fascinating about this is I have upgraded other machines (although they are newer) from 9.3 to 11.0-RC1 and they worked just fine.
> 
> I just noticed, all the systems that upgraded and worked properly are amd64.  This one is i386.

I just tried mfsBSD 10.0 on a memstick and the network cards both are enabled and at least rl0 works.  I didn't test mske0.  So this must be an issue with RC1.  I would like to try RC2 to see if thats fixed.  However, I don't see a way to upgrade without a working network.  This is a backup machine that backs up numerous others so the data on there is huge and is not easily replaced.  I don't have another drive large enough to hold it.  mfsBSD is not available yet for 11, but I am not sure that would be helpful.  bsdinstall will wipe out the drive.  So, any ideas how to do the upgrade?  I am out of ideas at the moment.