+ mm-vmscan-fix-anon-only-reclaim-evicting-file-pages-when-swappiness=max.patch added to mm-unstable branch

The patch titled
     Subject: mm/vmscan: fix anon-only reclaim evicting file pages when swappiness=max
has been added to the -mm mm-unstable branch.  Its filename is
     mm-vmscan-fix-anon-only-reclaim-evicting-file-pages-when-swappiness=max.patch

This patch will shortly appear at
     https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/akpm/25-new.git/tree/patches/mm-vmscan-fix-anon-only-reclaim-evicting-file-pages-when-swappiness=max.patch

This patch will later appear in the mm-unstable branch at
    git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/akpm/mm

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------------------------------------------------------
From: Ridong Chen <[email protected]>
Subject: mm/vmscan: fix anon-only reclaim evicting file pages when swappiness=max
Date: Fri, 24 Jul 2026 11:34:32 +0800

Patch series "mm/vmscan: fix swappiness=max and clean up per-node
proactive reclaim", v4.

Fixes and one cleanup.

Patch 1 fixes "swappiness=max": the anon-only test in get_scan_count() sat
after the "cannot reclaim anon" check, so when no anon was reclaimable the
request fell back to SCAN_FILE and evicted page cache instead.

Patch 2 fixes reclaim_store() collapsing every error into -EAGAIN, so
callers can no longer tell an invalid argument from a busy interface;
propagate the real error code, matching the memcg path.

Patch 3 drops the now-unused gfp_mask parameter from __node_reclaim().

Patch 4 fixes the same "swappiness=max" issue for MGLRU.


This patch (of 4):

As Qi mentioned [1], when swappiness=max (SWAPPINESS_ANON_ONLY) is set,
the reclaim logic is expected to reclaim anonymous pages exclusively. 
However, due to the current ordering of checks in get_scan_count(), file
pages may still be evicted if can_reclaim_anon_pages() returns false,
which contradicts the semantics of SWAPPINESS_ANON_ONLY.

Reproducer in a cgroup holding 64M of file cache, with no swap configured:

  Before (file cache is wrongly evicted):
    # cat memory.stat
    anon 196608
    file 67178496
    pgscan_proactive 0
    # echo "64M swappiness=max" > memory.reclaim
    # cat memory.stat
    anon 208896
    file 4096                 <- page cache evicted
    pgsteal_proactive 16400
    pgscan_proactive 16400

  After (file cache is left intact):
    # cat memory.stat
    anon 200704
    file 67178496
    pgscan_proactive 0
    # echo "64M swappiness=max" > memory.reclaim
    -bash: echo: write error: Resource temporarily unavailable
    # cat memory.stat
    anon 208896
    file 67178496             <- page cache untouched
    pgsteal_proactive 0
    pgscan_proactive 0

Fix this by bailing out early when SWAPPINESS_ANON_ONLY is set and no
anonymous pages are reclaimable, before falling back to file reclaim.

Link: https://lore.kernel.org/[email protected]
Link: https://lore.kernel.org/[email protected]
Link: https://lore.kernel.org/cgroups/[email protected]/ [1]
Fixes: 68a1436bde00 ("mm: add swappiness=max arg to memory.reclaim for only anon reclaim")
Signed-off-by: Ridong Chen <[email protected]>
Suggested-by: Qi Zheng <[email protected]>
Acked-by: Shakeel Butt <[email protected]>
Acked-by: Johannes Weiner <[email protected]>
Reviewed-by: Muchun Song <[email protected]>
Reviewed-by: Qi Zheng <[email protected]>
Reviewed-by: Barry Song <[email protected]>
Cc: Axel Rasmussen <[email protected]>
Cc: David Hildenbrand <[email protected]>
Cc: Davidlohr Bueso <[email protected]>
Cc: Kairui Song <[email protected]>
Cc: Lorenzo Stoakes <[email protected]>
Cc: Michal Hocko <[email protected]>
Cc: Roman Gushchin <[email protected]>
Cc: Wei Xu <[email protected]>
Cc: Yuanchu Xie <[email protected]>
Cc: Zhongkun He <[email protected]>
Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton <[email protected]>
---

 mm/vmscan.c |   24 +++++++++++++++++-------
 1 file changed, 17 insertions(+), 7 deletions(-)

--- a/mm/vmscan.c~mm-vmscan-fix-anon-only-reclaim-evicting-file-pages-when-swappiness=max
+++ a/mm/vmscan.c
@@ -2492,6 +2492,23 @@ static void get_scan_count(struct lruvec
 	enum scan_balance scan_balance;
 	enum lru_list lru;
 
+	/*
+	 * Proactive reclaim initiated by userspace for anonymous memory only.
+	 * SWAPPINESS_ANON_ONLY is set only on the proactive reclaim path, so
+	 * warn if it shows up elsewhere. When anon cannot be reclaimed (e.g.
+	 * no swap), bail out instead of falling back to evicting file pages,
+	 * which would violate the anon-only semantics.
+	 */
+	if (swappiness == SWAPPINESS_ANON_ONLY) {
+		WARN_ON_ONCE(!sc->proactive);
+		if (!can_reclaim_anon_pages(memcg, pgdat->node_id, sc)) {
+			memset(nr, 0, sizeof(*nr) * NR_LRU_LISTS);
+			return;
+		}
+		scan_balance = SCAN_ANON;
+		goto out;
+	}
+
 	/* If we have no swap space, do not bother scanning anon folios. */
 	if (!sc->may_swap || !can_reclaim_anon_pages(memcg, pgdat->node_id, sc)) {
 		scan_balance = SCAN_FILE;
@@ -2510,13 +2527,6 @@ static void get_scan_count(struct lruvec
 		goto out;
 	}
 
-	/* Proactive reclaim initiated by userspace for anonymous memory only */
-	if (swappiness == SWAPPINESS_ANON_ONLY) {
-		WARN_ON_ONCE(!sc->proactive);
-		scan_balance = SCAN_ANON;
-		goto out;
-	}
-
 	/*
 	 * Do not apply any pressure balancing cleverness when the
 	 * system is close to OOM, scan both anon and file equally
_

Patches currently in -mm which might be from [email protected] are

mm-vmscan-fix-anon-only-reclaim-evicting-file-pages-when-swappiness=max.patch
mm-vmscan-propagate-real-error-code-from-per-node-proactive-reclaim.patch
mm-vmscan-drop-unused-gfp_mask-parameter-from-__node_reclaim.patch
mm-mglru-fix-anon-only-reclaim-evicting-file-pages-when-swappiness=max.patch
memcg-move-mem_cgroup_swappiness-and-vm_swappiness-to-mm-swaph.patch
mm-vmscan-fix-node-reclaim-ignoring-swappiness-parameter.patch