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

[Barry Song]

On Thu, Aug 20, 2026 at 3:27 PM Ridong Chen <ridong.chen@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
> From: Ridong Chen <chenridong@xxxxxxxxxx>
>
> 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 <baohua@xxxxxxxxxx>
> Assisted-by: Claude:claude-opus-4-8
> Signed-off-by: Ridong Chen <chenridong@xxxxxxxxxx>
> ---
>  mm/vmscan.c | 29 +++++++++++++++++++++++++++--
>  1 file changed, 27 insertions(+), 2 deletions(-)
>
> diff --git a/mm/vmscan.c b/mm/vmscan.c
> index 94fc4f25e99f..7be4cec9a838 100644
> --- a/mm/vmscan.c
> +++ b/mm/vmscan.c
> @@ -5311,7 +5311,23 @@ static bool fill_evictable(struct lruvec *lruvec)
>
>                 while (!list_empty(head)) {
>                         bool success;
> -                       struct folio *folio = lru_to_folio(head);
> +                       struct folio *folio;
> +
> +                       /*
> +                        * 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 end we take from must match the end
> +                        * lru_gen_add_folio() inserts at: inactive folios use
> +                        * reclaiming=true (list_add_tail), so take from the
> +                        * head; active folios use reclaiming=false (list_add),
> +                        * so take from the tail.  Taking from the wrong end
> +                        * would reverse hot/cold within the generation.
> +                        */

too many words, maybe just:

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 +5335,16 @@ 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);
> +                       /*
> +                        * With reclaiming=false, lru_gen_folio_seq() would seed
> +                        * an inactive folio near max_seq, which
> +                        * lru_gen_is_active() reports as active, so its inactive
> +                        * placement would be lost.  Pass reclaiming=!active to
> +                        * seed it into the oldest generation instead.  This
> +                        * reuses reclaiming beyond its folio_rotate_reclaimable()
> +                        * meaning; it also picks list_add_tail() above.
> +                        */

Maybe that's too verbose. How about:

"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)

This is admittedly a bit ugly, but it seems to be the simplest
approach. Since switching MGLRU on and off is not a common scenario,
we probably don't want to over-engineer it. So, with the above change:

Acked-by: Barry Song <baohua@xxxxxxxxxx>