register_netdev — register a network device
| int register_netdev ( | struct net_device * dev ); | 
   Take a completed network device structure and add it to the kernel
   interfaces. A NETDEV_REGISTER message is sent to the netdev notifier
   chain. 0 is returned on success. A negative errno code is returned
   on a failure to set up the device, or if the name is a duplicate.
   
This is a wrapper around register_netdevice that takes the rtnl semaphore and expands the device name if you passed a format string to alloc_netdev.