lpfc_mem_alloc(9)

💖 lpfc_mem_alloc 💖

okay so this is a page from the Kernel API Manual, bestie — it's lpfc_mem_alloc(9) and it's literally the glow-up moment where all the PCI and memory pools get born ✨

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🌸 NAME 🌸

lpfc_mem_alloc — create and allocate all PCI and memory pools 🎀

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🦋 SYNOPSIS 🦋

int lpfc_mem_alloc (struct lpfc_hba *phba , int align );

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💅 ARGUMENTS 💅

• phba — the HBA you're setting up pools for. it's giving main character energy, everything hangs off this 🫶
• align — the alignment requirement for the blocks. and listen: it must be a power of two, no cap, that's just the vibe check 🔥

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✨ DESCRIPTION ✨

so what does it actually do? glad you asked 💖

It creates and allocates the PCI pools lpfc_mbuf_pool and lpfc_hrb_pool. iconic.

Then it creates and allocates kmalloc-backed mempools for LPFC_MBOXQ_t and lpfc_nodelist — yes both of them, we're thorough here 💅

Oh and it also allocates the VPI bitmask. not me forgetting the bitmask 😭 slay.

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⭐ NOTES ⭐

🚨 real talk: this one is not interrupt-safe. so do NOT call it from interrupt context, bestie, I'm begging 🙈

🔒 it must be called with no locks held. like, zero locks. drop them all first, periodt.

🧚 and the sweet part: if any allocation fails, it frees all successfully allocated memory before returning — so it cleans up after itself before it bounces. king behavior 👑

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🌈 RETURN 🌈

• 0 on success ✨
• -ENOMEM on failure (if any of the memory allocations fail) 💀

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🍓 SEE ALSO 🍓

• Kernel file ./drivers/scsi/lpfc/lpfc_mem.c
• lpfc_mem_free(9)
• lpfc_mem_free_all(9)
• lpfc_mbuf_alloc(9)
• __lpfc_mbuf_free(9)
• lpfc_mbuf_free(9)
• lpfc_nvmet_buf_alloc(9)
• lpfc_nvmet_buf_free(9)
• lpfc_els_hbq_alloc(9)
• lpfc_els_hbq_free(9)
• lpfc_sli4_rb_alloc(9)
• lpfc_sli4_rb_free(9)
• lpfc_sli4_nvmet_alloc(9)
• lpfc_sli4_nvmet_free(9)
• lpfc_in_buf_free(9)
• lpfc_rq_buf_free(9)

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and that's the whole page, bestie 💜 this one came from the source dir ./drivers/scsi/lpfc, dated October 2026, and the page itself is lpfc_mem_alloc(9) — go forth and allocate responsibly 🎀✨🦋