From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG  Wed Sep  4 15:49:49 2013
Return-Path: <owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG>
Delivered-To: questions@freebsd.org
Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org
 [IPv6:2001:1900:2254:206a::19:1])
 (using TLSv1 with cipher ADH-AES256-SHA (256/256 bits))
 (No client certificate requested)
 by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 95114AFE
 for <questions@freebsd.org>; Wed,  4 Sep 2013 15:49:49 +0000 (UTC)
 (envelope-from freebsd-questions-local@be-well.ilk.org)
Received: from be-well.ilk.org (be-well.ilk.org [23.30.133.173])
 by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 6F47E2D1D
 for <questions@freebsd.org>; Wed,  4 Sep 2013 15:49:49 +0000 (UTC)
Received: by be-well.ilk.org (Postfix, from userid 1147)
 id D1FDC33C4B; Wed,  4 Sep 2013 11:49:48 -0400 (EDT)
From: Lowell Gilbert <freebsd-questions-local@be-well.ilk.org>
To: Olivier Nicole <Olivier.Nicole@cs.ait.ac.th>
Subject: Re: Network startup with age Ethernet device
References: <wu7ob88naff.fsf@banyan.cs.ait.ac.th>
Date: Wed, 04 Sep 2013 11:49:48 -0400
In-Reply-To: <wu7ob88naff.fsf@banyan.cs.ait.ac.th> (Olivier Nicole's message
 of "Wed, 04 Sep 2013 17:33:24 +0700")
Message-ID: <44a9jsmvs3.fsf@be-well.ilk.org>
User-Agent: Gnus/5.13 (Gnus v5.13) Emacs/24.3 (berkeley-unix)
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain
Cc: questions@freebsd.org
X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org
X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.14
Precedence: list
List-Id: User questions <freebsd-questions.freebsd.org>
List-Unsubscribe: <http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/options/freebsd-questions>, 
 <mailto:freebsd-questions-request@freebsd.org?subject=unsubscribe>
List-Archive: <http://lists.freebsd.org/pipermail/freebsd-questions>
List-Post: <mailto:freebsd-questions@freebsd.org>
List-Help: <mailto:freebsd-questions-request@freebsd.org?subject=help>
List-Subscribe: <http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions>, 
 <mailto:freebsd-questions-request@freebsd.org?subject=subscribe>
X-List-Received-Date: Wed, 04 Sep 2013 15:49:49 -0000

Olivier Nicole <Olivier.Nicole@cs.ait.ac.th> writes:

> I want to set-up a small server from an Asus P5L-MX motherboard.
>
> It has an onboard gigabit Ethrnet that works with the driver age. 
>
> Problem is that at boot, I experience the interface to go up and down a
> couple of times, and it is usually down when Apache try to start, so
> Apache would not start (nor ntpd).
>
> I resolved to add a 5 seconds sleep in /etc/rc.d/netif but there may be
> a more elegant way to solve that.

Have you tried using netwait? 
I think that would involve putting enable_netwait in rc.conf, and
configuring an address for it to check; probably the gateway would be
good enough.