diff --git a/mm/shmem.c b/mm/shmem.c
index 6ece1e2fe76eb6b6670fc95fc9cf50d294e821cc..0905215fb0165779599c1a1452ae5e41619a765e 100644
--- a/mm/shmem.c
+++ b/mm/shmem.c
@@ -2854,10 +2854,14 @@ static int shmem_link(struct dentry *old_dentry, struct inode *dir, struct dentr
 	 * No ordinary (disk based) filesystem counts links as inodes;
 	 * but each new link needs a new dentry, pinning lowmem, and
 	 * tmpfs dentries cannot be pruned until they are unlinked.
+	 * But if an O_TMPFILE file is linked into the tmpfs, the
+	 * first link must skip that, to get the accounting right.
 	 */
-	ret = shmem_reserve_inode(inode->i_sb);
-	if (ret)
-		goto out;
+	if (inode->i_nlink) {
+		ret = shmem_reserve_inode(inode->i_sb);
+		if (ret)
+			goto out;
+	}
 
 	dir->i_size += BOGO_DIRENT_SIZE;
 	inode->i_ctime = dir->i_ctime = dir->i_mtime = current_time(inode);