[PATCH 1/3] mm/vmscan: fix anon-only reclaim evicting file pages when swappiness=max

From: Ridong

Date: Fri Jul 17 2026 - 07:35:17 EST


From: Ridong Chen <chenridong@xxxxxxxxxx>

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.

[1] https://lore.kernel.org/cgroups/7ddf3eee-5fe2-45f7-8614-c8936a039e04@xxxxxxxxx/

Fixes: 68a1436bde00 ("mm: add swappiness=max arg to memory.reclaim for only anon reclaim")
Suggested-by: Qi Zheng <qi.zheng@xxxxxxxxx>
Signed-off-by: Ridong Chen <chenridong@xxxxxxxxxx>
---
mm/vmscan.c | 18 +++++++++++-------
1 file changed, 11 insertions(+), 7 deletions(-)

diff --git a/mm/vmscan.c b/mm/vmscan.c
index 4357a44ee876..098adc599720 100644
--- a/mm/vmscan.c
+++ b/mm/vmscan.c
@@ -2492,6 +2492,17 @@ static void get_scan_count(struct lruvec *lruvec, struct scan_control *sc,
enum scan_balance scan_balance;
enum lru_list lru;

+ /* Proactive reclaim initiated by userspace for anonymous memory only */
+ 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 +2521,6 @@ static void get_scan_count(struct lruvec *lruvec, struct scan_control *sc,
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
--
2.34.1