Re: [PATCH net-next v3 5/6] netconsole: resume previously deactivated target

[Andre Carvalho]

On Wed, Nov 12, 2025 at 09:52:10AM -0800, Breno Leitao wrote:
> > The main reason why I opted for a helper in netpoll was to keep reference
> > tracking for these devices strictly inside netpoll and have simmetry between
> > setup and cleanup. Having said that, this might be an overkill and I'm fine with 
> > dropping the helper and taking your suggestion.
> 
> Right, that makes sense. Would we have other owners for that function?

I've looked at other drivers using netpoll and from what I could find all of them
are using __netpoll_setup paired with __netpoll_free. They don't seem to 
rely on dev_tracker to track references, I'd need to look a bit more to be certain,
but I think other callers are own the devices and track their lifecycle separately.
So I don't think this would be useful for them.

Since we are moving netpoll_cleanup to netconsole in your patch below, I think I should
drop the netpoll helper and keep it in netconsole. I wonder if we should consider
moving do_netpoll_cleanup to netconsole as well, since it seems to be the only caller
and then we would have the same symmetry I mentioned above.

So, to summarize, given your refactor patch I think it makes sense drop the previous
patch and do the netdev_hold in netconsole as you suggested. Does that sound good?

-- 
Andre Carvalho