diff --git a/Documentation/sysctl/vm.txt b/Documentation/sysctl/vm.txt
index 89a887c76629..cb0368459da3 100644
--- a/Documentation/sysctl/vm.txt
+++ b/Documentation/sysctl/vm.txt
@@ -803,6 +803,24 @@ performance impact. Reclaim code needs to take various locks to find freeable
 directory and inode objects. With vfs_cache_pressure=1000, it will look for
 ten times more freeable objects than there are.
 
+=============================================================
+
+watermark_scale_factor:
+
+This factor controls the aggressiveness of kswapd. It defines the
+amount of memory left in a node/system before kswapd is woken up and
+how much memory needs to be free before kswapd goes back to sleep.
+
+The unit is in fractions of 10,000. The default value of 10 means the
+distances between watermarks are 0.1% of the available memory in the
+node/system. The maximum value is 1000, or 10% of memory.
+
+A high rate of threads entering direct reclaim (allocstall) or kswapd
+going to sleep prematurely (kswapd_low_wmark_hit_quickly) can indicate
+that the number of free pages kswapd maintains for latency reasons is
+too small for the allocation bursts occurring in the system. This knob
+can then be used to tune kswapd aggressiveness accordingly.
+
 ==============================================================
 
 zone_reclaim_mode:
diff --git a/include/linux/mm.h b/include/linux/mm.h
index 75d1907b9009..f7fd64227d3a 100644
--- a/include/linux/mm.h
+++ b/include/linux/mm.h
@@ -1889,6 +1889,7 @@ extern void zone_pcp_reset(struct zone *zone);
 
 /* page_alloc.c */
 extern int min_free_kbytes;
+extern int watermark_scale_factor;
 
 /* nommu.c */
 extern atomic_long_t mmap_pages_allocated;
diff --git a/include/linux/mmzone.h b/include/linux/mmzone.h
index bdd9a270a813..c60df9257cc7 100644
--- a/include/linux/mmzone.h
+++ b/include/linux/mmzone.h
@@ -841,6 +841,8 @@ static inline int is_highmem(struct zone *zone)
 struct ctl_table;
 int min_free_kbytes_sysctl_handler(struct ctl_table *, int,
 					void __user *, size_t *, loff_t *);
+int watermark_scale_factor_sysctl_handler(struct ctl_table *, int,
+					void __user *, size_t *, loff_t *);
 extern int sysctl_lowmem_reserve_ratio[MAX_NR_ZONES-1];
 int lowmem_reserve_ratio_sysctl_handler(struct ctl_table *, int,
 					void __user *, size_t *, loff_t *);
diff --git a/kernel/sysctl.c b/kernel/sysctl.c
index f5102fabef7f..725587f10667 100644
--- a/kernel/sysctl.c
+++ b/kernel/sysctl.c
@@ -126,6 +126,7 @@ static int __maybe_unused two = 2;
 static int __maybe_unused four = 4;
 static unsigned long one_ul = 1;
 static int one_hundred = 100;
+static int one_thousand = 1000;
 #ifdef CONFIG_PRINTK
 static int ten_thousand = 10000;
 #endif
@@ -1403,6 +1404,15 @@ static struct ctl_table vm_table[] = {
 		.proc_handler	= min_free_kbytes_sysctl_handler,
 		.extra1		= &zero,
 	},
+	{
+		.procname	= "watermark_scale_factor",
+		.data		= &watermark_scale_factor,
+		.maxlen		= sizeof(watermark_scale_factor),
+		.mode		= 0644,
+		.proc_handler	= watermark_scale_factor_sysctl_handler,
+		.extra1		= &one,
+		.extra2		= &one_thousand,
+	},
 	{
 		.procname	= "percpu_pagelist_fraction",
 		.data		= &percpu_pagelist_fraction,
diff --git a/mm/page_alloc.c b/mm/page_alloc.c
index 941b802e11ec..d156310aedeb 100644
--- a/mm/page_alloc.c
+++ b/mm/page_alloc.c
@@ -249,6 +249,7 @@ compound_page_dtor * const compound_page_dtors[] = {
 
 int min_free_kbytes = 1024;
 int user_min_free_kbytes = -1;
+int watermark_scale_factor = 10;
 
 static unsigned long __meminitdata nr_kernel_pages;
 static unsigned long __meminitdata nr_all_pages;
@@ -6347,8 +6348,17 @@ static void __setup_per_zone_wmarks(void)
 			zone->watermark[WMARK_MIN] = tmp;
 		}
 
-		zone->watermark[WMARK_LOW]  = min_wmark_pages(zone) + (tmp >> 2);
-		zone->watermark[WMARK_HIGH] = min_wmark_pages(zone) + (tmp >> 1);
+		/*
+		 * Set the kswapd watermarks distance according to the
+		 * scale factor in proportion to available memory, but
+		 * ensure a minimum size on small systems.
+		 */
+		tmp = max_t(u64, tmp >> 2,
+			    mult_frac(zone->managed_pages,
+				      watermark_scale_factor, 10000));
+
+		zone->watermark[WMARK_LOW]  = min_wmark_pages(zone) + tmp;
+		zone->watermark[WMARK_HIGH] = min_wmark_pages(zone) + tmp * 2;
 
 		__mod_zone_page_state(zone, NR_ALLOC_BATCH,
 			high_wmark_pages(zone) - low_wmark_pages(zone) -
@@ -6489,6 +6499,21 @@ int min_free_kbytes_sysctl_handler(struct ctl_table *table, int write,
 	return 0;
 }
 
+int watermark_scale_factor_sysctl_handler(struct ctl_table *table, int write,
+	void __user *buffer, size_t *length, loff_t *ppos)
+{
+	int rc;
+
+	rc = proc_dointvec_minmax(table, write, buffer, length, ppos);
+	if (rc)
+		return rc;
+
+	if (write)
+		setup_per_zone_wmarks();
+
+	return 0;
+}
+
 #ifdef CONFIG_NUMA
 int sysctl_min_unmapped_ratio_sysctl_handler(struct ctl_table *table, int write,
 	void __user *buffer, size_t *length, loff_t *ppos)