diff --git a/include/linux/swap.h b/include/linux/swap.h
index 5b3216ba39a9..4ab236692e05 100644
--- a/include/linux/swap.h
+++ b/include/linux/swap.h
@@ -372,7 +372,6 @@ extern unsigned long mem_cgroup_shrink_node(struct mem_cgroup *mem,
 extern unsigned long shrink_all_memory(unsigned long nr_pages);
 extern int vm_swappiness;
 extern int remove_mapping(struct address_space *mapping, struct page *page);
-extern unsigned long vm_total_pages;
 
 extern unsigned long reclaim_pages(struct list_head *page_list);
 #ifdef CONFIG_NUMA
diff --git a/mm/memory_hotplug.c b/mm/memory_hotplug.c
index da374cd3d45b..be3c62e3fb95 100644
--- a/mm/memory_hotplug.c
+++ b/mm/memory_hotplug.c
@@ -844,8 +844,6 @@ int __ref online_pages(unsigned long pfn, unsigned long nr_pages,
 	kswapd_run(nid);
 	kcompactd_run(nid);
 
-	vm_total_pages = nr_free_pagecache_pages();
-
 	writeback_set_ratelimit();
 
 	memory_notify(MEM_ONLINE, &arg);
@@ -1595,7 +1593,6 @@ static int __ref __offline_pages(unsigned long start_pfn,
 		kcompactd_stop(node);
 	}
 
-	vm_total_pages = nr_free_pagecache_pages();
 	writeback_set_ratelimit();
 
 	memory_notify(MEM_OFFLINE, &arg);
diff --git a/mm/page-writeback.c b/mm/page-writeback.c
index 28b3e7a67565..4e4ddd67b71e 100644
--- a/mm/page-writeback.c
+++ b/mm/page-writeback.c
@@ -2076,13 +2076,11 @@ static int page_writeback_cpu_online(unsigned int cpu)
  * Called early on to tune the page writeback dirty limits.
  *
  * We used to scale dirty pages according to how total memory
- * related to pages that could be allocated for buffers (by
- * comparing nr_free_buffer_pages() to vm_total_pages.
+ * related to pages that could be allocated for buffers.
  *
  * However, that was when we used "dirty_ratio" to scale with
  * all memory, and we don't do that any more. "dirty_ratio"
- * is now applied to total non-HIGHPAGE memory (by subtracting
- * totalhigh_pages from vm_total_pages), and as such we can't
+ * is now applied to total non-HIGHPAGE memory, and as such we can't
  * get into the old insane situation any more where we had
  * large amounts of dirty pages compared to a small amount of
  * non-HIGHMEM memory.
diff --git a/mm/page_alloc.c b/mm/page_alloc.c
index 0fb5c97ac94c..20184e2a8cfe 100644
--- a/mm/page_alloc.c
+++ b/mm/page_alloc.c
@@ -5912,6 +5912,8 @@ build_all_zonelists_init(void)
  */
 void __ref build_all_zonelists(pg_data_t *pgdat)
 {
+	unsigned long vm_total_pages;
+
 	if (system_state == SYSTEM_BOOTING) {
 		build_all_zonelists_init();
 	} else {
diff --git a/mm/vmscan.c b/mm/vmscan.c
index 23156c252e0a..d4d7cd1d24c1 100644
--- a/mm/vmscan.c
+++ b/mm/vmscan.c
@@ -170,11 +170,6 @@ struct scan_control {
  * From 0 .. 200.  Higher means more swappy.
  */
 int vm_swappiness = 60;
-/*
- * The total number of pages which are beyond the high watermark within all
- * zones.
- */
-unsigned long vm_total_pages;
 
 static void set_task_reclaim_state(struct task_struct *task,
 				   struct reclaim_state *rs)