bxe(QLogic NetXtreme II BCM57840) did not link up with FreeBSD 11.1.

When I have install FreeBSD 11.1 on my server,  I have found that bxe(QLogic NetXtreme II BCM57840, 10GbE) did not link up.

My server is:

SuperMicro SuperServer1018R-WC0R
https://www.supermicro.com/products/system/1u/1018/sys-1018r-wc0r.cfm

CPU:

CPU: Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU E5-2620 v4 @ 2.10GHz (2100.05-MHz K8-class CPU)

The network interface is a PCIe card:

bxe0: <QLogic NetXtreme II BCM57840 4x10GbE (B1) BXE v:1.78.90

I found that as following:

1. With FreeBSD 11.1, bxe did not link up
2. When trying to use PXE boot, then bxe linked up
3. With Ubuntu 16.04, bxe linked up

So I tried some operations, and I have found that once, I down the bxe and then up the bxe, bxe linked up!

So, I decided to modify /etc/rc.d/netwait script as follwoing:

• /etc/rc.conf
  ### Network link/usability verification options
  netwait_enable="YES"             # Enable rc.d/netwait (or NO)
  #netwait_ip=""                  # Wait for ping response from any IP in this list.
  netwait_timeout="60"            # Total number of seconds to perform pings.
  netwait_if="bxe0"                  # Wait for active link on each intf in this list.
  netwait_if_timeout="30"         # Total number of seconds to monitor link state.
  
  ###
  #
  #       # Handle SIGINT (Ctrl-C); force abort of while() loop
  #       trap break SIGINT
  #       while [ ${count} -le ${netwait_if_timeout} ]; do
  #
  ## ADDED
  #               /sbin/ifconfig ${wait_if} down 2>/dev/null
  #               /sbin/ifconfig ${wait_if} up 2>/dev/null
  ## ADDED
  #
  #               if output=`/sbin/ifconfig ${wait_if} 2>/dev/null`; then
  #                       if [ ${got_if} -eq 0 ]; then
  #
  ###
• /etc/rc.d/netwait
          if [ -n "${netwait_if}" ]; then
                  any_error=0
                  for wait_if in ${netwait_if}; do
                          echo -n "Waiting for ${wait_if}"
                          link=""
                          got_if=0
                          count=1
                          # Handle SIGINT (Ctrl-C); force abort of while() loop
                          trap break SIGINT
                          while [ ${count} -le ${netwait_if_timeout} ]; do
  #
  # ADDED           
                                  /sbin/ifconfig ${wait_if} down 2>/dev/null
                                  /sbin/ifconfig ${wait_if} up 2>/dev/null
  # ADDED                             
  #
                                  if output=`/sbin/ifconfig ${wait_if} 2>/dev/null`; then
                                          if [ ${got_if} -eq 0 ]; then
                                                  echo -n ", interface present"
                                                  got_if=1
                                          fi
                                          link=`expr "${output}" : '.*[[:blank:]]status: \(no carrier\)'`
                                          if [ -z "${link}" ]; then
                                                  echo ', got link.'
                                                  break
                                          fi
                                  fi
                                  sleep 1
                                  count=$((count+1))
                          done

This modification works well.