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Date: Fri, 2 Jan 2015 16:07:03 -0500
To: bkostya@hotmail.com
CC: nios2-dev@lists.rocketboards.org; netdev@vger.kernel.org
Subject: Re: [PATCH v2][Nios2-dev] Altera TSE: Add missing phydev
From: davem@davemloft.net

From: Kostya Belezko <redacted>
Date: Fri, 2 Jan 2015 15:57:29 -0500

quoted

What do you mean by phy_disconnect() is down?
Originally priv->phydev is NULL (and remains null forever) right after 'ifdown eth0'

I'm saying that the code should probably keep phydev non-NULL and just
take the PHY down/up during these events.

Yes, this is what the patch intends to achieve. It keeps phydev non-NULL and calls phy_stop, shy_start respectively.
phy_disconnect is called upon rmmod.