2 files changed, 11 insertions, 0 deletions

diff --git a/mm/memcontrol.c b/mm/memcontrol.c
index ae052b5e3315..0f870ba43942 100644
--- a/mm/memcontrol.c
+++ b/mm/memcontrol.c
@@ -1917,6 +1917,15 @@ retry:
                      current->flags & PF_EXITING))
                 goto force;
 
+        /*
+         * Prevent unbounded recursion when reclaim operations need to
+         * allocate memory. This might exceed the limits temporarily,
+         * but we prefer facilitating memory reclaim and getting back
+         * under the limit over triggering OOM kills in these cases.
+         */
+        if (unlikely(current->flags & PF_MEMALLOC))
+                goto force;
+
         if (unlikely(task_in_memcg_oom(current)))
                 goto nomem;
 
diff --git a/mm/vmscan.c b/mm/vmscan.c
index 744f926af442..76fda2268148 100644
--- a/mm/vmscan.c
+++ b/mm/vmscan.c
@@ -3043,7 +3043,9 @@ unsigned long try_to_free_mem_cgroup_pages(struct mem_cgroup *memcg,
                                             sc.gfp_mask,
                                             sc.reclaim_idx);
 
+        current->flags |= PF_MEMALLOC;
         nr_reclaimed = do_try_to_free_pages(zonelist, &sc);
+        current->flags &= ~PF_MEMALLOC;
 
         trace_mm_vmscan_memcg_reclaim_end(nr_reclaimed);