diff --git a/Documentation/DMA-ISA-LPC.txt b/Documentation/DMA-ISA-LPC.txt
index c413313..7a065ac 100644
--- a/Documentation/DMA-ISA-LPC.txt
+++ b/Documentation/DMA-ISA-LPC.txt
@@ -42,7 +42,7 @@
 
 Unfortunately the memory available for ISA DMA is scarce so unless you
 allocate the memory during boot-up it's a good idea to also pass
-__GFP_REPEAT and __GFP_NOWARN to make the allocator try a bit harder.
+__GFP_RETRY_MAYFAIL and __GFP_NOWARN to make the allocator try a bit harder.
 
 (This scarcity also means that you should allocate the buffer as
 early as possible and not release it until the driver is unloaded.)
diff --git a/arch/powerpc/include/asm/book3s/64/pgalloc.h b/arch/powerpc/include/asm/book3s/64/pgalloc.h
index 20b1485..e2329db 100644
--- a/arch/powerpc/include/asm/book3s/64/pgalloc.h
+++ b/arch/powerpc/include/asm/book3s/64/pgalloc.h
@@ -56,7 +56,7 @@
 	return (pgd_t *)__get_free_page(pgtable_gfp_flags(mm, PGALLOC_GFP));
 #else
 	struct page *page;
-	page = alloc_pages(pgtable_gfp_flags(mm, PGALLOC_GFP | __GFP_REPEAT),
+	page = alloc_pages(pgtable_gfp_flags(mm, PGALLOC_GFP | __GFP_RETRY_MAYFAIL),
 				4);
 	if (!page)
 		return NULL;
diff --git a/arch/powerpc/kvm/book3s_64_mmu_hv.c b/arch/powerpc/kvm/book3s_64_mmu_hv.c
index 710e491..8cb0190 100644
--- a/arch/powerpc/kvm/book3s_64_mmu_hv.c
+++ b/arch/powerpc/kvm/book3s_64_mmu_hv.c
@@ -93,7 +93,7 @@
 	}
 
 	if (!hpt)
-		hpt = __get_free_pages(GFP_KERNEL|__GFP_ZERO|__GFP_REPEAT
+		hpt = __get_free_pages(GFP_KERNEL|__GFP_ZERO|__GFP_RETRY_MAYFAIL
 				       |__GFP_NOWARN, order - PAGE_SHIFT);
 
 	if (!hpt)
diff --git a/arch/sparc/kernel/mdesc.c b/arch/sparc/kernel/mdesc.c
index e4b4e79..fa466ce 100644
--- a/arch/sparc/kernel/mdesc.c
+++ b/arch/sparc/kernel/mdesc.c
@@ -205,7 +205,7 @@
 	handle_size = (sizeof(struct mdesc_handle) -
 		       sizeof(struct mdesc_hdr) +
 		       mdesc_size);
-	base = kmalloc(handle_size + 15, GFP_KERNEL | __GFP_REPEAT);
+	base = kmalloc(handle_size + 15, GFP_KERNEL | __GFP_RETRY_MAYFAIL);
 	if (!base)
 		return NULL;
 
diff --git a/drivers/mmc/host/wbsd.c b/drivers/mmc/host/wbsd.c
index e15a973..9668616 100644
--- a/drivers/mmc/host/wbsd.c
+++ b/drivers/mmc/host/wbsd.c
@@ -1386,7 +1386,7 @@
 	 * order for ISA to be able to DMA to it.
 	 */
 	host->dma_buffer = kmalloc(WBSD_DMA_SIZE,
-		GFP_NOIO | GFP_DMA | __GFP_REPEAT | __GFP_NOWARN);
+		GFP_NOIO | GFP_DMA | __GFP_RETRY_MAYFAIL | __GFP_NOWARN);
 	if (!host->dma_buffer)
 		goto free;
 
diff --git a/drivers/s390/char/vmcp.c b/drivers/s390/char/vmcp.c
index 65f5a79..98749fa 100644
--- a/drivers/s390/char/vmcp.c
+++ b/drivers/s390/char/vmcp.c
@@ -98,7 +98,7 @@
 	}
 	if (!session->response)
 		session->response = (char *)__get_free_pages(GFP_KERNEL
-						| __GFP_REPEAT | GFP_DMA,
+						| __GFP_RETRY_MAYFAIL | GFP_DMA,
 						get_order(session->bufsize));
 	if (!session->response) {
 		mutex_unlock(&session->mutex);
diff --git a/drivers/target/target_core_transport.c b/drivers/target/target_core_transport.c
index f1b3a46..1bdc106 100644
--- a/drivers/target/target_core_transport.c
+++ b/drivers/target/target_core_transport.c
@@ -252,7 +252,7 @@
 	int rc;
 
 	se_sess->sess_cmd_map = kzalloc(tag_num * tag_size,
-					GFP_KERNEL | __GFP_NOWARN | __GFP_REPEAT);
+					GFP_KERNEL | __GFP_NOWARN | __GFP_RETRY_MAYFAIL);
 	if (!se_sess->sess_cmd_map) {
 		se_sess->sess_cmd_map = vzalloc(tag_num * tag_size);
 		if (!se_sess->sess_cmd_map) {
diff --git a/drivers/vhost/net.c b/drivers/vhost/net.c
index e3d7ea1..06d0448 100644
--- a/drivers/vhost/net.c
+++ b/drivers/vhost/net.c
@@ -897,7 +897,7 @@
 	struct sk_buff **queue;
 	int i;
 
-	n = kvmalloc(sizeof *n, GFP_KERNEL | __GFP_REPEAT);
+	n = kvmalloc(sizeof *n, GFP_KERNEL | __GFP_RETRY_MAYFAIL);
 	if (!n)
 		return -ENOMEM;
 	vqs = kmalloc(VHOST_NET_VQ_MAX * sizeof(*vqs), GFP_KERNEL);
diff --git a/drivers/vhost/scsi.c b/drivers/vhost/scsi.c
index fd6c8b6..ff02a94 100644
--- a/drivers/vhost/scsi.c
+++ b/drivers/vhost/scsi.c
@@ -1404,7 +1404,7 @@
 	struct vhost_virtqueue **vqs;
 	int r = -ENOMEM, i;
 
-	vs = kzalloc(sizeof(*vs), GFP_KERNEL | __GFP_NOWARN | __GFP_REPEAT);
+	vs = kzalloc(sizeof(*vs), GFP_KERNEL | __GFP_NOWARN | __GFP_RETRY_MAYFAIL);
 	if (!vs) {
 		vs = vzalloc(sizeof(*vs));
 		if (!vs)
diff --git a/drivers/vhost/vsock.c b/drivers/vhost/vsock.c
index 3f63e03..c9de9c4 100644
--- a/drivers/vhost/vsock.c
+++ b/drivers/vhost/vsock.c
@@ -508,7 +508,7 @@
 	/* This struct is large and allocation could fail, fall back to vmalloc
 	 * if there is no other way.
 	 */
-	vsock = kvmalloc(sizeof(*vsock), GFP_KERNEL | __GFP_REPEAT);
+	vsock = kvmalloc(sizeof(*vsock), GFP_KERNEL | __GFP_RETRY_MAYFAIL);
 	if (!vsock)
 		return -ENOMEM;
 
diff --git a/include/linux/gfp.h b/include/linux/gfp.h
index 4c6656f..bcfb9f7 100644
--- a/include/linux/gfp.h
+++ b/include/linux/gfp.h
@@ -25,7 +25,7 @@
 #define ___GFP_FS		0x80u
 #define ___GFP_COLD		0x100u
 #define ___GFP_NOWARN		0x200u
-#define ___GFP_REPEAT		0x400u
+#define ___GFP_RETRY_MAYFAIL	0x400u
 #define ___GFP_NOFAIL		0x800u
 #define ___GFP_NORETRY		0x1000u
 #define ___GFP_MEMALLOC		0x2000u
@@ -136,26 +136,56 @@
  *
  * __GFP_RECLAIM is shorthand to allow/forbid both direct and kswapd reclaim.
  *
- * __GFP_REPEAT: Try hard to allocate the memory, but the allocation attempt
- *   _might_ fail.  This depends upon the particular VM implementation.
+ * The default allocator behavior depends on the request size. We have a concept
+ * of so called costly allocations (with order > PAGE_ALLOC_COSTLY_ORDER).
+ * !costly allocations are too essential to fail so they are implicitly
+ * non-failing by default (with some exceptions like OOM victims might fail so
+ * the caller still has to check for failures) while costly requests try to be
+ * not disruptive and back off even without invoking the OOM killer.
+ * The following three modifiers might be used to override some of these
+ * implicit rules
+ *
+ * __GFP_NORETRY: The VM implementation will try only very lightweight
+ *   memory direct reclaim to get some memory under memory pressure (thus
+ *   it can sleep). It will avoid disruptive actions like OOM killer. The
+ *   caller must handle the failure which is quite likely to happen under
+ *   heavy memory pressure. The flag is suitable when failure can easily be
+ *   handled at small cost, such as reduced throughput
+ *
+ * __GFP_RETRY_MAYFAIL: The VM implementation will retry memory reclaim
+ *   procedures that have previously failed if there is some indication
+ *   that progress has been made else where.  It can wait for other
+ *   tasks to attempt high level approaches to freeing memory such as
+ *   compaction (which removes fragmentation) and page-out.
+ *   There is still a definite limit to the number of retries, but it is
+ *   a larger limit than with __GFP_NORETRY.
+ *   Allocations with this flag may fail, but only when there is
+ *   genuinely little unused memory. While these allocations do not
+ *   directly trigger the OOM killer, their failure indicates that
+ *   the system is likely to need to use the OOM killer soon.  The
+ *   caller must handle failure, but can reasonably do so by failing
+ *   a higher-level request, or completing it only in a much less
+ *   efficient manner.
+ *   If the allocation does fail, and the caller is in a position to
+ *   free some non-essential memory, doing so could benefit the system
+ *   as a whole.
  *
  * __GFP_NOFAIL: The VM implementation _must_ retry infinitely: the caller
- *   cannot handle allocation failures. New users should be evaluated carefully
- *   (and the flag should be used only when there is no reasonable failure
- *   policy) but it is definitely preferable to use the flag rather than
- *   opencode endless loop around allocator.
- *
- * __GFP_NORETRY: The VM implementation must not retry indefinitely and will
- *   return NULL when direct reclaim and memory compaction have failed to allow
- *   the allocation to succeed.  The OOM killer is not called with the current
- *   implementation.
+ *   cannot handle allocation failures. The allocation could block
+ *   indefinitely but will never return with failure. Testing for
+ *   failure is pointless.
+ *   New users should be evaluated carefully (and the flag should be
+ *   used only when there is no reasonable failure policy) but it is
+ *   definitely preferable to use the flag rather than opencode endless
+ *   loop around allocator.
+ *   Using this flag for costly allocations is _highly_ discouraged.
  */
 #define __GFP_IO	((__force gfp_t)___GFP_IO)
 #define __GFP_FS	((__force gfp_t)___GFP_FS)
 #define __GFP_DIRECT_RECLAIM	((__force gfp_t)___GFP_DIRECT_RECLAIM) /* Caller can reclaim */
 #define __GFP_KSWAPD_RECLAIM	((__force gfp_t)___GFP_KSWAPD_RECLAIM) /* kswapd can wake */
 #define __GFP_RECLAIM ((__force gfp_t)(___GFP_DIRECT_RECLAIM|___GFP_KSWAPD_RECLAIM))
-#define __GFP_REPEAT	((__force gfp_t)___GFP_REPEAT)
+#define __GFP_RETRY_MAYFAIL	((__force gfp_t)___GFP_RETRY_MAYFAIL)
 #define __GFP_NOFAIL	((__force gfp_t)___GFP_NOFAIL)
 #define __GFP_NORETRY	((__force gfp_t)___GFP_NORETRY)
 
diff --git a/include/linux/slab.h b/include/linux/slab.h
index 04a7f79..41473df 100644
--- a/include/linux/slab.h
+++ b/include/linux/slab.h
@@ -471,7 +471,8 @@
  *
  * %__GFP_NOWARN - If allocation fails, don't issue any warnings.
  *
- * %__GFP_REPEAT - If allocation fails initially, try once more before failing.
+ * %__GFP_RETRY_MAYFAIL - Try really hard to succeed the allocation but fail
+ *   eventually.
  *
  * There are other flags available as well, but these are not intended
  * for general use, and so are not documented here. For a full list of
diff --git a/include/trace/events/mmflags.h b/include/trace/events/mmflags.h
index 10e3663..8e50d01 100644
--- a/include/trace/events/mmflags.h
+++ b/include/trace/events/mmflags.h
@@ -34,7 +34,7 @@
 	{(unsigned long)__GFP_FS,		"__GFP_FS"},		\
 	{(unsigned long)__GFP_COLD,		"__GFP_COLD"},		\
 	{(unsigned long)__GFP_NOWARN,		"__GFP_NOWARN"},	\
-	{(unsigned long)__GFP_REPEAT,		"__GFP_REPEAT"},	\
+	{(unsigned long)__GFP_RETRY_MAYFAIL,	"__GFP_RETRY_MAYFAIL"},	\
 	{(unsigned long)__GFP_NOFAIL,		"__GFP_NOFAIL"},	\
 	{(unsigned long)__GFP_NORETRY,		"__GFP_NORETRY"},	\
 	{(unsigned long)__GFP_COMP,		"__GFP_COMP"},		\
diff --git a/mm/hugetlb.c b/mm/hugetlb.c
index 1e51652..bc48ee7 100644
--- a/mm/hugetlb.c
+++ b/mm/hugetlb.c
@@ -1384,7 +1384,7 @@
 
 	page = __alloc_pages_node(nid,
 		htlb_alloc_mask(h)|__GFP_COMP|__GFP_THISNODE|
-						__GFP_REPEAT|__GFP_NOWARN,
+						__GFP_RETRY_MAYFAIL|__GFP_NOWARN,
 		huge_page_order(h));
 	if (page) {
 		prep_new_huge_page(h, page, nid);
@@ -1525,7 +1525,7 @@
 {
 	int order = huge_page_order(h);
 
-	gfp_mask |= __GFP_COMP|__GFP_REPEAT|__GFP_NOWARN;
+	gfp_mask |= __GFP_COMP|__GFP_RETRY_MAYFAIL|__GFP_NOWARN;
 	if (nid == NUMA_NO_NODE)
 		nid = numa_mem_id();
 	return __alloc_pages_nodemask(gfp_mask, order, nid, nmask);
diff --git a/mm/internal.h b/mm/internal.h
index 0e4f558..24d88f0 100644
--- a/mm/internal.h
+++ b/mm/internal.h
@@ -23,7 +23,7 @@
  * hints such as HIGHMEM usage.
  */
 #define GFP_RECLAIM_MASK (__GFP_RECLAIM|__GFP_HIGH|__GFP_IO|__GFP_FS|\
-			__GFP_NOWARN|__GFP_REPEAT|__GFP_NOFAIL|\
+			__GFP_NOWARN|__GFP_RETRY_MAYFAIL|__GFP_NOFAIL|\
 			__GFP_NORETRY|__GFP_MEMALLOC|__GFP_NOMEMALLOC|\
 			__GFP_ATOMIC)
 
diff --git a/mm/page_alloc.c b/mm/page_alloc.c
index 64b7d82..6d30e91 100644
--- a/mm/page_alloc.c
+++ b/mm/page_alloc.c
@@ -3284,6 +3284,14 @@
 	/* The OOM killer will not help higher order allocs */
 	if (order > PAGE_ALLOC_COSTLY_ORDER)
 		goto out;
+	/*
+	 * We have already exhausted all our reclaim opportunities without any
+	 * success so it is time to admit defeat. We will skip the OOM killer
+	 * because it is very likely that the caller has a more reasonable
+	 * fallback than shooting a random task.
+	 */
+	if (gfp_mask & __GFP_RETRY_MAYFAIL)
+		goto out;
 	/* The OOM killer does not needlessly kill tasks for lowmem */
 	if (ac->high_zoneidx < ZONE_NORMAL)
 		goto out;
@@ -3413,7 +3421,7 @@
 	}
 
 	/*
-	 * !costly requests are much more important than __GFP_REPEAT
+	 * !costly requests are much more important than __GFP_RETRY_MAYFAIL
 	 * costly ones because they are de facto nofail and invoke OOM
 	 * killer to move on while costly can fail and users are ready
 	 * to cope with that. 1/4 retries is rather arbitrary but we
@@ -3920,9 +3928,9 @@
 
 	/*
 	 * Do not retry costly high order allocations unless they are
-	 * __GFP_REPEAT
+	 * __GFP_RETRY_MAYFAIL
 	 */
-	if (costly_order && !(gfp_mask & __GFP_REPEAT))
+	if (costly_order && !(gfp_mask & __GFP_RETRY_MAYFAIL))
 		goto nopage;
 
 	if (should_reclaim_retry(gfp_mask, order, ac, alloc_flags,
diff --git a/mm/sparse-vmemmap.c b/mm/sparse-vmemmap.c
index a56c398..c50b1a1 100644
--- a/mm/sparse-vmemmap.c
+++ b/mm/sparse-vmemmap.c
@@ -56,11 +56,11 @@
 
 		if (node_state(node, N_HIGH_MEMORY))
 			page = alloc_pages_node(
-				node, GFP_KERNEL | __GFP_ZERO | __GFP_REPEAT,
+				node, GFP_KERNEL | __GFP_ZERO | __GFP_RETRY_MAYFAIL,
 				get_order(size));
 		else
 			page = alloc_pages(
-				GFP_KERNEL | __GFP_ZERO | __GFP_REPEAT,
+				GFP_KERNEL | __GFP_ZERO | __GFP_RETRY_MAYFAIL,
 				get_order(size));
 		if (page)
 			return page_address(page);
diff --git a/mm/util.c b/mm/util.c
index 26be640..6520f2d 100644
--- a/mm/util.c
+++ b/mm/util.c
@@ -339,7 +339,7 @@
  * Uses kmalloc to get the memory but if the allocation fails then falls back
  * to the vmalloc allocator. Use kvfree for freeing the memory.
  *
- * Reclaim modifiers - __GFP_NORETRY and __GFP_NOFAIL are not supported. __GFP_REPEAT
+ * Reclaim modifiers - __GFP_NORETRY and __GFP_NOFAIL are not supported. __GFP_RETRY_MAYFAIL
  * is supported only for large (>32kB) allocations, and it should be used only if
  * kmalloc is preferable to the vmalloc fallback, due to visible performance drawbacks.
  *
@@ -367,11 +367,11 @@
 		kmalloc_flags |= __GFP_NOWARN;
 
 		/*
-		 * We have to override __GFP_REPEAT by __GFP_NORETRY for !costly
+		 * We have to override __GFP_RETRY_MAYFAIL by __GFP_NORETRY for !costly
 		 * requests because there is no other way to tell the allocator
 		 * that we want to fail rather than retry endlessly.
 		 */
-		if (!(kmalloc_flags & __GFP_REPEAT) ||
+		if (!(kmalloc_flags & __GFP_RETRY_MAYFAIL) ||
 				(size <= PAGE_SIZE << PAGE_ALLOC_COSTLY_ORDER))
 			kmalloc_flags |= __GFP_NORETRY;
 	}
diff --git a/mm/vmalloc.c b/mm/vmalloc.c
index 6016ab0..8698c1c 100644
--- a/mm/vmalloc.c
+++ b/mm/vmalloc.c
@@ -1795,7 +1795,7 @@
  *	allocator with @gfp_mask flags.  Map them into contiguous
  *	kernel virtual space, using a pagetable protection of @prot.
  *
- *	Reclaim modifiers in @gfp_mask - __GFP_NORETRY, __GFP_REPEAT
+ *	Reclaim modifiers in @gfp_mask - __GFP_NORETRY, __GFP_RETRY_MAYFAIL
  *	and __GFP_NOFAIL are not supported
  *
  *	Any use of gfp flags outside of GFP_KERNEL should be consulted
diff --git a/mm/vmscan.c b/mm/vmscan.c
index e9210f8..a1af041 100644
--- a/mm/vmscan.c
+++ b/mm/vmscan.c
@@ -2506,18 +2506,18 @@
 		return false;
 
 	/* Consider stopping depending on scan and reclaim activity */
-	if (sc->gfp_mask & __GFP_REPEAT) {
+	if (sc->gfp_mask & __GFP_RETRY_MAYFAIL) {
 		/*
-		 * For __GFP_REPEAT allocations, stop reclaiming if the
+		 * For __GFP_RETRY_MAYFAIL allocations, stop reclaiming if the
 		 * full LRU list has been scanned and we are still failing
 		 * to reclaim pages. This full LRU scan is potentially
-		 * expensive but a __GFP_REPEAT caller really wants to succeed
+		 * expensive but a __GFP_RETRY_MAYFAIL caller really wants to succeed
 		 */
 		if (!nr_reclaimed && !nr_scanned)
 			return false;
 	} else {
 		/*
-		 * For non-__GFP_REPEAT allocations which can presumably
+		 * For non-__GFP_RETRY_MAYFAIL allocations which can presumably
 		 * fail without consequence, stop if we failed to reclaim
 		 * any pages from the last SWAP_CLUSTER_MAX number of
 		 * pages that were scanned. This will return to the
diff --git a/net/core/dev.c b/net/core/dev.c
index 0244051..8515f8f 100644
--- a/net/core/dev.c
+++ b/net/core/dev.c
@@ -7384,7 +7384,7 @@
 
 	BUG_ON(count < 1);
 
-	rx = kvzalloc(sz, GFP_KERNEL | __GFP_REPEAT);
+	rx = kvzalloc(sz, GFP_KERNEL | __GFP_RETRY_MAYFAIL);
 	if (!rx)
 		return -ENOMEM;
 
@@ -7424,7 +7424,7 @@
 	if (count < 1 || count > 0xffff)
 		return -EINVAL;
 
-	tx = kvzalloc(sz, GFP_KERNEL | __GFP_REPEAT);
+	tx = kvzalloc(sz, GFP_KERNEL | __GFP_RETRY_MAYFAIL);
 	if (!tx)
 		return -ENOMEM;
 
@@ -7965,7 +7965,7 @@
 	/* ensure 32-byte alignment of whole construct */
 	alloc_size += NETDEV_ALIGN - 1;
 
-	p = kvzalloc(alloc_size, GFP_KERNEL | __GFP_REPEAT);
+	p = kvzalloc(alloc_size, GFP_KERNEL | __GFP_RETRY_MAYFAIL);
 	if (!p)
 		return NULL;
 
diff --git a/net/core/skbuff.c b/net/core/skbuff.c
index 8b11341..f990eb8 100644
--- a/net/core/skbuff.c
+++ b/net/core/skbuff.c
@@ -4747,7 +4747,7 @@
 
 	gfp_head = gfp_mask;
 	if (gfp_head & __GFP_DIRECT_RECLAIM)
-		gfp_head |= __GFP_REPEAT;
+		gfp_head |= __GFP_RETRY_MAYFAIL;
 
 	*errcode = -ENOBUFS;
 	skb = alloc_skb(header_len, gfp_head);
diff --git a/net/sched/sch_fq.c b/net/sched/sch_fq.c
index 147fde7..263d16e 100644
--- a/net/sched/sch_fq.c
+++ b/net/sched/sch_fq.c
@@ -648,7 +648,7 @@
 		return 0;
 
 	/* If XPS was setup, we can allocate memory on right NUMA node */
-	array = kvmalloc_node(sizeof(struct rb_root) << log, GFP_KERNEL | __GFP_REPEAT,
+	array = kvmalloc_node(sizeof(struct rb_root) << log, GFP_KERNEL | __GFP_RETRY_MAYFAIL,
 			      netdev_queue_numa_node_read(sch->dev_queue));
 	if (!array)
 		return -ENOMEM;
diff --git a/tools/perf/builtin-kmem.c b/tools/perf/builtin-kmem.c
index 0a8a1c4..a1497c5 100644
--- a/tools/perf/builtin-kmem.c
+++ b/tools/perf/builtin-kmem.c
@@ -643,7 +643,7 @@
 	{ "__GFP_FS",			"F" },
 	{ "__GFP_COLD",			"CO" },
 	{ "__GFP_NOWARN",		"NWR" },
-	{ "__GFP_REPEAT",		"R" },
+	{ "__GFP_RETRY_MAYFAIL",	"R" },
 	{ "__GFP_NOFAIL",		"NF" },
 	{ "__GFP_NORETRY",		"NR" },
 	{ "__GFP_COMP",			"C" },