Re: [RFC PATCH 1/3] mm: avoid unnecessary lru drain for wp_can_reuse_anon_folio()

From: Shakeel Butt

Date: Wed Jun 17 2026 - 11:15:27 EST


On Fri, Jun 12, 2026 at 12:48:19PM +0800, Barry Song wrote:
> On Fri, Jun 12, 2026 at 2:10 AM Shakeel Butt <shakeel.butt@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> >
> > On Thu, Jun 11, 2026 at 06:51:22PM +0800, Barry Song (Xiaomi) wrote:
> > > We always unconditionally drain the LRU before retrying anon folio
> > > reuse in wp_can_reuse_anon_folio(). Instead, assume !LRU anon folios
> > > are in lru_cache, and use the refcount to avoid many unnecessary LRU
> > > drains.
> > >
> > > Signed-off-by: Barry Song (Xiaomi) <baohua@xxxxxxxxxx>
> > > ---
> > > mm/memory.c | 8 +++++++-
> > > 1 file changed, 7 insertions(+), 1 deletion(-)
> > >
> > > diff --git a/mm/memory.c b/mm/memory.c
> > > index 56be920c56d7..487a34377a7b 100644
> > > --- a/mm/memory.c
> > > +++ b/mm/memory.c
> > > @@ -4193,12 +4193,18 @@ static bool wp_can_reuse_anon_folio(struct folio *folio,
> > > */
> > > if (folio_test_ksm(folio) || folio_ref_count(folio) > 3)
> > > return false;
> > > - if (!folio_test_lru(folio))
> > > + if (!folio_test_lru(folio)) {
> > > + /*
> > > + * Assume folio is on lru_cache and holds a cache reference.
> > > + */
> > > + if (folio_ref_count(folio) > 2 + folio_test_swapcache(folio))
> > > + return false;
> >
> > In your experiments, how much amount of drains were reduced due to this specific
> > check?
>
> This is a very good question. I booted the system into Ubuntu, and after
> boot completed I observed:
>
> wp_reuse_skipped_drain: 5542
> do_swap_skipped_drain: 0
>
> Then I built the kernel in a 1GB memcg using zRAM swap, and observed:
>
> wp_reuse_skipped_drain: 25017
> do_swap_skipped_drain: 43595
>
> So in summary, even without swap-in we can save a significant number of
> drains in wp_can_reuse_anon_folio(). With heavy swap-in workloads, most
> of the savings come from avoiding drains in do_swap_page(), while we
> still see a substantial number of skipped drains in wp_can_reuse_anon_folio().

Thanks and this is very good info. Add this in the commit message when you send
the non-RFC version.