LOCKING POLICY(9)

✨ Locking policy ✨

okay so this page is from the Kernel API Manual, manual name 9, and the vibe check is: locking, but make it simple 💅

iwlmld has a very simple locking policy: it doesn't have any mutexes. It relies on cfg80211's wiphy->mtx and takes the lock when needed. All the control flows originating from mac80211 already acquired the lock, so that part is trivial — but also notifications that are received from the firmware and handled asynchronously are handled only after having taken the lock. This is described in notif.c. There are spin_locks needed to synchronize with the data path, around the allocation of the queues, for example.

👀 SEE ALSO 👀

• Kernel file: ./drivers/net/wireless/intel/iwlwifi/mld/mld.h
• Introduction(9)
• Debugfs(9)
• Main resources(9)
• struct iwl_mld(9)
• struct iwl_mld_mod_params(9)
• enum iwl_rx_handler_context(9)
• struct iwl_rx_handler(9)
• struct iwl_notif_struct_size(9)

signed off with main character energy from source/version ./drivers/net/wireless/intel/i..., dated October 2026 — periodt 🫶💖