media_pipeline_start(9)

💅 media_pipeline_start — "everybody's streaming now" ✨

Bestie. This is media_pipeline_start(9) from the Kernel API Manual, section 9, and it is literally the function that flips a whole media pipeline to streaming mode. Let's get into it 🫶

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✨ SYNOPSIS ✨

int media_pipeline_start (struct media_pad *origin , struct media_pipeline *pipe );

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🎀 ARGUMENTS 🎀

• origin — Starting pad. This is where the walk begins, bestie, it's giving main character energy 👑
• pipe — Media pipeline to be assigned to all pads in the pipeline.

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🌸 DESCRIPTION 🌸

Okay so here's the vibe: media_pipeline_start marks all the pads connected to pad origin — through enabled links, either directly or indirectly — as streaming. Not just the neighbours, not just the besties two hops away, the whole connected crew. Periodt 💅

Then it takes the given pipeline object and assigns it to every pad in the pipeline, storing it in the media_pad pipe field. So every pad in that pipeline now knows which pipeline it belongs to. Iconic behaviour, no cap.

⚠️ Nested callers, listen up: calls to this function can be nested, and in that case the exact same number of media_pipeline_stop calls will be required to stop streaming. So don't think one stop undoes five starts — that's not the math, and the way that math works is not negotiable 😭

⚠️ And the other big one: the pipeline pointer must be identical for all nested calls to media_pipeline_start. Same pointer, every time. No mixing and matching, fr fr.

Also, the signature hands back an int — the page doesn't spell out anything more about it, so that's all we're saying 🙈

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🔥 SEE ALSO 🔥

So many friends, so many cross-references. The kernel file is ./include/media/media-entity.h and here's the whole roll call:

enum media_gobj_type(9)
struct media_gobj(9)
struct media_entity_enum(9)
struct media_graph(9)
struct media_pipeline(9)
struct media_pipeline_pad(9)
struct media_pipeline_pad_iter(9)
struct media_pipeline_entity_iter(9)
struct media_link(9)
enum media_pad_signal_type(9)
struct media_pad(9)
struct media_entity_operations(9)
enum media_entity_type(9)
struct media_entity(9)
media_entity_for_each_pad(9)
struct media_interface(9)
struct media_intf_devnode(9)
media_entity_id(9)
media_type(9)
media_id(9)
media_gobj_gen_id(9)
is_media_entity_v4l2_video_device(9)
is_media_entity_v4l2_subdev(9)
media_entity_enum_init(9)
media_entity_enum_cleanup(9)
media_entity_enum_zero(9)
media_entity_enum_set(9)
media_entity_enum_clear(9)
media_entity_enum_test(9)
media_entity_enum_test_and_set(9)
media_entity_enum_empty(9)
media_entity_enum_intersects(9)
gobj_to_entity(9)
gobj_to_pad(9)
gobj_to_link(9)
gobj_to_intf(9)
intf_to_devnode(9)
media_gobj_create(9)
media_gobj_destroy(9)
media_entity_pads_init(9)
media_entity_cleanup(9)
media_get_pad_index(9)
media_create_pad_link(9)
media_create_pad_links(9)
media_entity_remove_links(9)
__media_entity_setup_link(9)
media_entity_setup_link(9)
media_entity_find_link(9)
media_pad_remote_pad_first(9)
media_pad_remote_pad_unique(9)
media_entity_remote_pad_unique(9)
media_entity_remote_source_pad_unique(9)
media_pad_is_streaming(9)
media_entity_is_streaming(9)
media_entity_pipeline(9)
media_pad_pipeline(9)
media_entity_get_fwnode_pad(9)
media_graph_walk_init(9)
media_graph_walk_cleanup(9)
media_graph_walk_start(9)
media_graph_walk_next(9)
__media_pipeline_start(9)
media_pipeline_stop(9)
__media_pipeline_stop(9)
media_pipeline_for_each_pad(9)
media_pipeline_entity_iter_init(9)
media_pipeline_entity_iter_cleanup(9)
media_pipeline_for_each_entity(9)
media_pipeline_alloc_start(9)
media_devnode_create(9)
media_devnode_remove(9)
media_create_intf_link(9)
__media_remove_intf_link(9)
media_remove_intf_link(9)
__media_remove_intf_links(9)
media_remove_intf_links(9)
media_entity_call(9)
media_create_ancillary_link(9)
__media_entity_next_link(9)
for_each_media_entity_data_link(9)

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Okay that's the whole page, you ate that 🍓 This one lives in ./include/media and the version stamp is October 2026 — so like, future-coded of it. Go forth and start some pipelines, bestie 🌈✨