[PATCH v2] mm/mglru: preserve inactive placement when enabling MGLRU

From: Ridong Chen <[email protected]>

When the LRU is switched to MGLRU (echo y > /sys/kernel/mm/lru_gen/
enabled), fill_evictable() re-inserts every folio via
lru_gen_add_folio(..., false).  With reclaiming hardcoded to false, an
inactive anonymous folio (no PG_active, not in the swapcache) takes the
"gen = MIN_NR_GENS" branch in lru_gen_folio_seq() and is seeded at
seq = max_seq - 1, which lru_gen_is_active() treats as active.  Its
inactive placement is lost and NR_INACTIVE_ANON is folded into
NR_ACTIVE_ANON.

Pass reclaiming=!active so a folio from an inactive list is seeded into
an older generation.  Folios from the active list carry PG_active and
hit the first branch either way, so they are unchanged.

reclaiming also selects the insertion end in lru_gen_add_folio():
list_add_tail() for inactive folios, list_add() for active ones.  Both
the legacy LRU and a MGLRU generation keep the hottest folios at the
head and the coldest at the tail, and reclaim takes from the tail.  To
preserve that order the folio must be taken from the end matching the
insertion end, so take inactive folios from the head and active folios
from the tail; otherwise hot/cold would be reversed within the
generation.

Tested on x86_64, next-20260812, 2G VM + 1G swap, ~1.5G anon pushed onto
the inactive list before enabling MGLRU:

                         Active(anon)  Inactive(anon)
  before switch (legacy)        2952         1548792   kB
  after `echo y`, unpatched  1552052               0   kB
  after `echo y`, patched      15144         1536636   kB

Inactive file folios stay inactive either way (NR_INACTIVE_FILE is
preserved).

Fixes: 354ed5974429 ("mm: multi-gen LRU: kill switch")
Suggested-by: Barry Song <[email protected]>
Assisted-by: Claude:claude-opus-4-8
Signed-off-by: Ridong Chen <[email protected]>
Acked-by: Barry Song <[email protected]>
---
 mm/vmscan.c | 18 ++++++++++++++++--
 1 file changed, 16 insertions(+), 2 deletions(-)

diff --git a/mm/vmscan.c b/mm/vmscan.c
index 94fc4f25e99f..c17ac77b08a4 100644
--- a/mm/vmscan.c
+++ b/mm/vmscan.c
@@ -5311,7 +5311,17 @@ static bool fill_evictable(struct lruvec *lruvec)
 
 		while (!list_empty(head)) {
 			bool success;
-			struct folio *folio = lru_to_folio(head);
+			struct folio *folio;
+
+			/*
+			 * lru_gen_add_folio() uses list_add_tail() rather
+			 * than list_add() when reclaiming is true.  Match
+			 * its ordering to avoid cold/hot inversion.
+			 */
+			if (active)
+				folio = lru_to_folio(head);
+			else
+				folio = list_first_entry(head, struct folio, lru);
 
 			VM_WARN_ON_ONCE_FOLIO(folio_test_unevictable(folio), folio);
 			VM_WARN_ON_ONCE_FOLIO(folio_test_active(folio) != active, folio);
@@ -5319,7 +5329,11 @@ static bool fill_evictable(struct lruvec *lruvec)
 			VM_WARN_ON_ONCE_FOLIO(folio_lru_gen(folio) != -1, folio);
 
 			lruvec_del_folio(lruvec, folio);
-			success = lru_gen_add_folio(lruvec, folio, false);
+			/*
+			 * Borrow reclaiming=true to place inactive folios in
+			 * the older gens.
+			 */
+			success = lru_gen_add_folio(lruvec, folio, !active);
 			VM_WARN_ON_ONCE(!success);
 
 			if (!--remaining)
-- 
2.34.1