[PATCH v2 net] net: phy: change devlink flag to AUTOREMOVE_SUPPLIER for non-SFP PHYs

From: Wei Fang

Date: Mon Feb 02 2026 - 00:44:42 EST


For the shared MDIO bus use case, multiple MACs will share the same MDIO
bus. Therefore, these MACs all depend on this MDIO bus. If this shared
MDIO bus is removed, all the PHY devices attached to this MDIO bus will
also be removed. Consequently, the MAC driver should not access the PHY
device, otherwise, it will lead to some potential crashes. Because the
corresponding phydev and the mii_bus have been freed, some pointers have
become invalid.

For example. Abhishek reported a crash issue that occurred if the MDIO
bus driver was removed first, followed by the MAC driver. The crash log
is as below.

Call trace:
__list_del_entry_valid_or_report+0xa8/0xe0
__device_link_del+0x40/0xf0
device_link_put_kref+0xb4/0xc8
device_link_del+0x38/0x58
phy_detach+0x2c/0x170
phy_disconnect+0x4c/0x70
phylink_disconnect_phy+0x6c/0xc0 [phylink]
stmmac_release+0x60/0x358 [stmmac]

Another example is the i.MX95-15x15 platform which has two ENETC ports.
When all the external PHYs are managed the EMDIO (the MDIO controller),
if the enetc driver is removed after the EMDIO driver. Users will see
the below crash log and the console is hanged.

Call trace:
_phy_state_machine+0x230/0x36c (P)
phy_stop+0x74/0x190
phylink_stop+0x28/0xb8
enetc_close+0x28/0x8c
__dev_close_many+0xb4/0x1d8
netif_close_many+0x8c/0x13c
enetc4_pf_remove+0x2c/0x84
pci_device_remove+0x44/0xe8

To address this issue, Sarosh Hasan tried to change the devlink flag to
DL_FLAG_AUTOREMOVE_SUPPLIER [1], so that the MAC driver will be removed
along with the PHY driver. However, the solution does not take into
account the hot-swappable PHY devices (SFP PHYs), so when the PHY device
is unplugged, the MAC driver will automatically be removed, which is not
the expected behavior. This issue should not exist for SFP PHYs, so based
on the Sarosh's patch, the flag is changed to DL_FLAG_AUTOREMOVE_SUPPLIER
for non-SFP PHYs.

Reported-by: Abhishek Chauhan (ABC) <quic_abchauha@xxxxxxxxxxx>
Closes: https://lore.kernel.org/all/d696a426-40bb-4c1a-b42d-990fb690de5e@xxxxxxxxxxx/
Link: https://lore.kernel.org/imx/20250703090041.23137-1-quic_sarohasa@xxxxxxxxxxx/ # [1]
Fixes: bc66fa87d4fd ("net: phy: Add link between phy dev and mac dev")
Suggested-by: Maxime Chevallier <maxime.chevallier@xxxxxxxxxxx>
Signed-off-by: Wei Fang <wei.fang@xxxxxxx>
---
v2:
1. Change the subject and update the commit message
2. Based on Maxime's suggestion, only set DL_FLAG_AUTOREMOVE_SUPPLIER
flag for non-SFP PHYs.
v1 link: https://lore.kernel.org/imx/20260126104409.1070403-1-wei.fang@xxxxxxx/
---
drivers/net/phy/phy_device.c | 14 +++++++++++---
1 file changed, 11 insertions(+), 3 deletions(-)

diff --git a/drivers/net/phy/phy_device.c b/drivers/net/phy/phy_device.c
index 81984d4ebb7c..0494ab58ceaf 100644
--- a/drivers/net/phy/phy_device.c
+++ b/drivers/net/phy/phy_device.c
@@ -1771,9 +1771,17 @@ int phy_attach_direct(struct net_device *dev, struct phy_device *phydev,
* another mac interface, so we should create a device link between
* phy dev and mac dev.
*/
- if (dev && phydev->mdio.bus->parent && dev->dev.parent != phydev->mdio.bus->parent)
- phydev->devlink = device_link_add(dev->dev.parent, &phydev->mdio.dev,
- DL_FLAG_PM_RUNTIME | DL_FLAG_STATELESS);
+ if (dev && bus->parent && dev->dev.parent != bus->parent) {
+ if (phy_on_sfp(phydev))
+ phydev->devlink = device_link_add(dev->dev.parent,
+ &phydev->mdio.dev,
+ DL_FLAG_PM_RUNTIME |
+ DL_FLAG_STATELESS);
+ else
+ device_link_add(dev->dev.parent, &phydev->mdio.dev,
+ DL_FLAG_PM_RUNTIME |
+ DL_FLAG_AUTOREMOVE_SUPPLIER);
+ }

return err;

--
2.34.1