Re: [PATCH net] net: phy: add device link between MAC device and MDIO device

[Jakub Kicinski]

On Mon, 26 Jan 2026 18:44:09 +0800 Wei Fang wrote:
> The commit bc66fa87d4fd ("net: phy: Add link between phy dev and mac
> dev") has created a device link between the MAC and the PHY if the MAC
> uses a shared MDIO bus (The MDIO and the MAC are two separate devices).
> Sarosh Hasan tried to change the DL_FLAG_STATELESS flag to
> DL_FLAG_AUTOREMOVE_SUPPLIER to fix the issue [1]. However, the solution
> does not take into account the hot-swappable PHY devices (such as SFP).
> so when the PHY device is unplugged, the MAC driver will automatically
> be removed, which is not the expected behavior.
> 
> Therefore, to solve this issue of the shared MDIO bus, we create the
> device link between the MAC device and the MDIO device, rather than
> between the MAC device and the PHY device. And when the shared MDIO bus
> is removed, all MAC drivers that depend on it will also be removed.

Anyone willing to venture a review tag?