Re: [PATCH net v2] ipvlan: keep lower device alive until private destruction

[Jakub Kicinski]

On Mon,  3 Aug 2026 14:11:39 +0200 Krystian Kaniewski wrote:
> Specifically, RXE acts as an asynchronous owner in this scenario. RXE
> queues RDMA device removal on NETDEV_UNREGISTER, meaning it can retain a
> reference to the ipvlan netdev after ndo_uninit has completed.

The netdev reference only guarantees that struct net_device does not 
go away. Caller must check that the device is still alive if it is
trying to operate on it without a guarantee that it's still live.