From mboxrd@z Thu Jan  1 00:00:00 1970
From: "David S. Miller" <davem@redhat.com>
Subject: Re: Bug#251215: kernel-image-2.6.6-1-k7: pppd locks up, cannot be
 killed, during ppp shutdown
Date: Sat, 29 May 2004 12:48:33 -0700
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To: Herbert Xu <herbert@gondor.apana.org.au>
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On Sat, 29 May 2004 15:17:36 +1000
Herbert Xu <herbert@gondor.apana.org.au> wrote:

> Why do we need to call free_netdev after unregistering the netdev
> from the drivers at all? What's wrong with calling it from run_todo
> itself?

Because the driver is the only agent which knows when it is safe
to free up the structure.  It may still have some attached memory
to free, for example, ala:

	unregister_netdev(dev);
	kfree(dev->priv);
	free_netdev(dev);

This is common, for example in drivers/net/tg3.c:tg3_remove_one() we
have:

		struct tg3 *tp = netdev_priv(dev);

		unregister_netdev(dev);
		iounmap((void *)tp->regs);
		free_netdev(dev);

See?