Re: [PATCH] mm/vmscan: respect mems_effective in demote_folio_list()

[Andrew Morton]

On Sat, 20 Dec 2025 06:10:21 +0000 Bing Jiao <bingjiao@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> Commit 7d709f49babc ("vmscan,cgroup: apply mems_effective to reclaim")
> introduces the cpuset.mems_effective check and applies it to
> can_demote().

So we'll want

	Fixes: 7d709f49babc ("vmscan,cgroup: apply mems_effective to reclaim")

in the changelog.

> However, it does not apply this check in
> demote_folio_list(), which leads to situations where pages are demoted
> to nodes that are explicitly excluded from the task's cpuset.mems.
> 
> To address the issue that demotion targets do not respect
> cpuset.mem_effective in demote_folio_list(), implement a new function
> get_demotion_targets(), which returns a preferred demotion target
> and all allowed (fallback) nodes against mems_effective,
> and update demote_folio_list() and can_demote() accordingly to
> use get_demotion_targets().

7d709f49babc fist appeared in 6.16, so we must decide whether to
backport this fix into -stable kernels, via a Cc:
<stable@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>.

To make this decision it's best to have a clear understanding of the
userspace visible impact of the bug.  Putting pages into improper nodes
is undesirable, but how much does it affect real-world workloads? 
Please include in the changelog some words about this to help others
understand why we should backport the fix.

> Furthermore, update some supporting functions:
>   - Add a parameter for next_demotion_node() to return a copy of
>     node_demotion[]->preferred, allowing get_demotion_targets()
>     to select the next-best node for demotion.
>   - Change the parameters for cpuset_node_allowed() and
>     mem_cgroup_node_allowed() from nid to nodemask * to allow
>     for direct logic-and operations with mems_effective.

If we do decide to backport the fix into earlier kernels then it's best
to keep the patch as small and as simple as possible.  So non-bugfix
changes such as these are best made via a second followup patch which
can be merged via the normal -rc staging process.