Could someone from networking confirm (or deny) that the timer being removed in sk_stop_timer() will no longer be used even if del_timer() returns false? net/core/sock.c: void sk_stop_timer(struct sock *sk, struct timer_list* timer) { if (del_timer(timer)) __sock_put(sk); } If this is the case, then I'll add the following interface: del_timer_sync_shutdown() // the common case which syncs del_timer_shutdown() // the uncommon case, that returns immediately // used for those cases that add extra code to // handle it, like sk_stop_timer() Which has the same semantics as del_timer_sync() and del_timer() respectively, but will prevent the timer from being rearmed again. This way we can convert the sk_stop_timer() to: void sk_stop_timer(struct sock *sk, struct timer_list* timer) { if (del_timer_shutdown(timer)) __sock_put(sk); } We can also add the del_timer_shutdown() to other locations that need to put a timer into a shutdown state before freeing, and where it's in a context that can not call del_timer_sync_shutdown(). -- Steve