ice_open(9)

📦 version 7.3.1, in nixpkgs unstable

✨ ice_open(9) ✨

okay so bestie, welcome to ice_open(9) from the Kernel API Manual — this is the page about the function that gets called when your network interface wakes up and decides to be a main character 🌸

💖 NAME 💖

ice_open — literally the function that gets called when a network interface becomes active. that's it, that's the vibe 🦋

🎀 SYNOPSIS 🎀

int ice_open (struct net_device *netdev );

💅 ARGUMENTS 💅

  • netdev — the network interface device structure 🫶 this is the netdev in question, the whole reason we're here

🌈 DESCRIPTION 🌈

okay so the open entry point — that's this one — gets called when a network interface is made active by the system, and "active" here means IFF_UP in case you were wondering 👑

and like, at this exact moment, a whole bunch of things happen. not me listing them all but here we go:

  • all the resources needed for transmit and receive operations get allocated 💸
  • the interrupt handler gets registered with the OS 🚨
  • the netdev watchdog gets enabled 🐕
  • and the stack gets notified that the interface is ready 🫡

it's giving "everything all at once" energy, fr fr.

Returns 0 on success, and a negative value on failure 😭 (so like, negative = bad news, remember that)

🦋 SEE ALSO 🦋

first up, the kernel file where all this lives iykyk:

  • Kernel file ./drivers/net/ethernet/intel/ice/ice_main.c

and now the extended universe, the whole friend group 🌸 no cap, every single one:

like, that's the whole squad 💜 go read them, i'm obsessed.

and that's the page bestie!! 🎀 source is ./drivers/net/ethernet/intel/ice, dated October 2026, and the manual tag is ice_open(9) — ok bye, mwah 💅✨

📦 where this page comes from