ixgbevf_close(9)

💅 NAME

okay so bestie, gather round — this is ixgbevf_close, and it's literally the function that disables a network interface. that's the whole vibe. it shuts things down. it's giving "closing time at the club" energy 🎀

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✨ SYNOPSIS

int ixgbevf_close (struct net_device *netdev );

like, it takes one thing, it returns an int, and spoiler alert: that int is always 0. slay. 🔥

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🎀 ARGUMENTS

• netdev — the network interface device structure. that's it, that's the whole arg list. she's a single-argument icon and we respect her 🫶

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🌸 DESCRIPTION

okay so first thing's first, bestie: returns 0, this is not allowed to fail. not "shouldn't fail", not "might fail on a bad day" — not allowed. the kernel does not accept failure here and honestly? iconic. no cap. 👑

the close entry point is called when an interface is de-activated by the OS. key detail: the hardware is still under the driver's control at this point, but it needs to be disabled. so we're not gone, we're just... going quiet. 🙈

and how do we do that? a global MAC reset is issued to stop the hardware, and then all transmit and receive resources are freed. that's the whole glow-up-to-glow-down pipeline 💀✨

🚨 tiny but mighty caveat: this function's whole job is teardown, so don't go calling it expecting the interface to still be doing anything cute afterwards. the hardware gets stopped and the TX/RX resources get freed. periodt.

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🦋 SEE ALSO

bestie, buckle up, this list is long and every single one of these is part of the squad 💜

first up, the kernel file where all this lives:

Kernel file ./drivers/net/ethernet/intel/ixgbevf/ixgbevf_main.c

and now the friends-of-the-family, in order, exactly as they appear:

ixgbevf_set_ivar(9), ixgbevf_tx_timeout(9), ixgbevf_clean_tx_irq(9), ixgbevf_rx_skb(9), ixgbevf_rx_checksum(9), ixgbevf_process_skb_fields(9), ixgbevf_is_non_eop(9), ixgbevf_alloc_rx_buffers(9), ixgbevf_cleanup_headers(9), ixgbevf_reuse_rx_page(9), ixgbevf_add_rx_frag(9), ixgbevf_poll(9), ixgbevf_write_eitr(9), ixgbevf_configure_msix(9), ixgbevf_update_itr(9), ixgbevf_msix_clean_rings(9), ixgbevf_request_msix_irqs(9), ixgbevf_request_irq(9), ixgbevf_irq_disable(9), ixgbevf_irq_enable(9), ixgbevf_configure_tx_ring(9), ixgbevf_configure_tx(9), ixgbevf_init_rss_key(9), ixgbevf_configure_rx(9), ixgbevf_set_rx_mode(9), ixgbevf_set_features(9), ixgbevf_clean_rx_ring(9), ixgbevf_clean_tx_ring(9), ixgbevf_clean_all_rx_rings(9), ixgbevf_clean_all_tx_rings(9), ixgbevf_set_num_queues(9), ixgbevf_set_interrupt_capability(9), ixgbevf_alloc_q_vector(9), ixgbevf_free_q_vector(9), ixgbevf_alloc_q_vectors(9), ixgbevf_free_q_vectors(9), ixgbevf_reset_interrupt_capability(9), ixgbevf_init_interrupt_scheme(9), ixgbevf_clear_interrupt_scheme(9), ixgbevf_sw_init(9), ixgbevf_update_stats(9), ixgbevf_service_timer(9), ixgbevf_check_hang_subtask(9), ixgbevf_watchdog_update_link(9), ixgbevf_watchdog_link_is_up(9), ixgbevf_watchdog_link_is_down(9), ixgbevf_watchdog_subtask(9), ixgbevf_service_task(9), ixgbevf_free_tx_resources(9), ixgbevf_free_all_tx_resources(9), ixgbevf_setup_tx_resources(9), ixgbevf_setup_all_tx_resources(9), ixgbevf_setup_rx_resources(9), ixgbevf_setup_all_rx_resources(9), ixgbevf_free_rx_resources(9), ixgbevf_free_all_rx_resources(9), ixgbevf_open(9), ixgbevf_close_suspend(9), ixgbevf_set_mac(9), ixgbevf_change_mtu(9), ixgbevf_probe(9), ixgbevf_remove(9), ixgbevf_io_error_detected(9), ixgbevf_io_slot_reset(9), ixgbevf_io_resume(9), ixgbevf_init_module(9), ixgbevf_exit_module(9), ixgbevf_get_hw_dev_name(9)

like I said. the whole squad. 🌈

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🧚 sign-off

this little masterpiece came out of the kernel API manual, source path ./drivers/net/ethernet/intel/i... (yeah it's truncated, that's how it shipped, we don't gatekeep 💅), dated October 2026. go forth and close your interfaces responsibly, bestie. mwah 💖🌸