phy_device_remove(9)

🌸 phy_device_remove(9) — Kernel API Manual 🌸

okay bestie, welcome to the glow-up era of the kernel API manual 💅 this one's from the phy_device_remove page and it's short, sweet, and honestly iconic for it. let's get into it 🫶

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✨ NAME ✨

phy_device_remove — take a phy device that was already registered and yeet it off the MDIO bus 🦋

like, not destroy it, just un-register it. big difference. keep reading, i promise it matters 💖

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✨ SYNOPSIS ✨

void phy_device_remove (struct phy_device *phydev );

no return value, returns nothing, gives you zero information back — it's giving void and honestly? respect 🙈

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✨ ARGUMENTS ✨

• phydev — the phy_device structure you're removing. that's it. that's the whole argument. one (1) singular phy device to evict 🎀

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✨ DESCRIPTION ✨

okay so this is the part where you need to listen, because this is the classic gotcha 😭

This doesn't free the phy_device itself. like, at all. nope. what it actually does is merely reverse the effects of phy_device_register. that's the whole job. it undoes the registration, it does not go anywhere near freeing your memory 🔥

so if you're sitting there thinking "cool, removed it, memory's handled" — no bestie. use phy_device_free to free the device after calling this function. after. like, this function first, then that one. in that order. periodt 💀

lowkey the most important sentence on this whole page: remove ≠ free. do both, in the right order, or the vibe check will fail catastrophically 🧚

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✨ SEE ALSO ✨

the source lives in the kernel file ./drivers/net/phy/phy_device.c — and the related-manpage section is stacked, like genuinely a whole friend group of functions 👑

• phy_uses_state_machine(9), phy_register_fixup(9), genphy_match_phy_device(9), get_phy_c45_ids(9), get_phy_c22_id(9), get_phy_device(9), phy_device_register(9), phy_get_c45_ids(9), phy_find_next(9), phy_prepare_link(9), phy_connect_direct(9), phy_connect(9)
• phy_disconnect(9), phy_poll_reset(9), phy_sfp_connect_phy(9), phy_sfp_disconnect_phy(9), phy_sfp_attach(9), phy_sfp_detach(9), phy_sfp_probe(9), phy_attach_direct(9), phy_detach(9), phy_reset_after_clk_enable(9), genphy_config_advert(9), genphy_c37_config_advert(9)
• genphy_setup_forced(9), genphy_restart_aneg(9), genphy_check_and_restart_aneg(9), __genphy_config_aneg(9), genphy_c37_config_aneg(9), genphy_aneg_done(9), genphy_update_link(9), genphy_read_status_fixed(9), genphy_read_status(9), genphy_c37_read_status(9), genphy_soft_reset(9), genphy_read_abilities(9)
• phy_remove_link_mode(9), phy_advertise_supported(9), phy_advertise_eee_all(9), phy_support_eee(9), phy_disable_eee(9), phy_support_sym_pause(9), phy_support_asym_pause(9), phy_set_sym_pause(9), phy_set_asym_pause(9), phy_validate_pause(9), phy_get_pause(9), phy_get_internal_delay(9)
• phy_get_tx_amplitude_gain(9), phy_get_mac_termination(9), phy_get_sfp_port(9), fwnode_mdio_find_device(9), fwnode_phy_find_device(9), fwnode_get_phy_node(9), phy_probe(9), phy_driver_register(9)

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and that's the page!! short king of a manpage, but every word counts 🌈 this one's filed under ./drivers/net/phy, dated October 2026 — so like, future-dated but still exactly as iconic as ever 💜 mwah, go free your phy devices properly 🎀✨