From: Zach Hartley <zhartley@linus.highpoint.edu>
Date: Sun, 28 Oct 2001 23:37:13 -0500

zhartley> Does anyone else get "dhclient: send_packet: Network is down" messages printed to
zhartley> their console constantly? As far as I can tell, there is nothing actually wrong
zhartley> with dhcp, because it never actually drops connections or anything (i'm usually in
zhartley> a telnet session when this message is printed, so i know the network can't be
zhartley> down). i've searched through most of the archive and haven't seen a thing. any
zhartley> ideas?
zhartley> 
zhartley> Zach

Hello Zach,

  I suffered from the same trouble.
Whilst looking for something else I stumbled on a message, I think in this
mailing list's archive (though I cannot be sure).

  My understanding is that 'dhclient' attempts to acquire addresses for
as many interfaces as it finds.  Although you might have but one network
card, you may have multiple interfaces (such as ppp0, tun0, gif0, etc)
Use the 'ifconfig' command for a list of these interfaces:
-------------------------------------------
 %ifconfig -a
 ex0: flags=8863<UP,BROADCAST,NOTRAILERS,RUNNING,SIMPLEX,MULTICAST> mtu 1500
        address: 00:60:08:19:86:67
        media: Ethernet autoselect (100baseTX full-duplex)
        status: active
        inet 206.2.228.157 netmask 0xffffffe0 broadcast 206.2.228.159
        inet6 fe80::260:8ff:fe19:8667%ex0 prefixlen 64 scopeid 0x1
 lo0: flags=8009<UP,LOOPBACK,MULTICAST> mtu 33228
        inet 127.0.0.1 netmask 0xff000000
        inet6 fe80::1%lo0 prefixlen 64 scopeid 0x2
        inet6 ::1 prefixlen 128
 ppp0: flags=8010<POINTOPOINT,MULTICAST> mtu 1500
 ppp1: flags=8010<POINTOPOINT,MULTICAST> mtu 1500
 sl0: flags=c010<POINTOPOINT,LINK2,MULTICAST> mtu 296
 sl1: flags=c010<POINTOPOINT,LINK2,MULTICAST> mtu 296
 strip0: flags=0<> mtu 1100
 strip1: flags=0<> mtu 1100
 tun0: flags=10<POINTOPOINT> mtu 1500
 tun1: flags=10<POINTOPOINT> mtu 1500
 gre0: flags=8010<POINTOPOINT,MULTICAST> mtu 1450
 gre1: flags=8010<POINTOPOINT,MULTICAST> mtu 1450
 ipip0: flags=8010<POINTOPOINT,MULTICAST>
 ipip1: flags=8010<POINTOPOINT,MULTICAST>
 gif0: flags=8010<POINTOPOINT,MULTICAST> mtu 1280
 gif1: flags=8010<POINTOPOINT,MULTICAST> mtu 1280
 gif2: flags=8010<POINTOPOINT,MULTICAST> mtu 1280
 gif3: flags=8010<POINTOPOINT,MULTICAST> mtu 1280
-------------------------------------------
  In my case the only interface that I want to have 'dhclient' work on
is the 'ex0' interface.

  In my '/etc/rc.conf' file there was one line for 'dhclient':
------------------
dhclient=YES
------------------

  I added another line to '/etc/rc.conf', like this:
------------------
dhclient_flags="ex0"
------------------
and then rebooted.  (There may be a way to restart the 'dhclient' without
rebooting, but I rebooted).

  Then those pesky messages disappeared.

Marty Cawthon
ChipChat