Swap Files

General Information

Swap can be increased by resizing partitions, adding new partitions formatted as swap, or by creating swap files. Swap files are useful if you need to utilize existing volumes and cannot resize the swap partition.

Checklist

• Distro(s): Any

Create a block file called “swapfile” in /home/ that is 1GB.

dd if=/dev/zero of=/home/swapfile bs=1024 count=1048576

Explanation:

• bs: write 1024 bytes at a time (or 1K)
• count: 1024K * 1024K = 1048576K (or 1GB)

mkswap /home/swapfile

swapon /home/swapfile

swapon -s
 
Filename				Type		Size	Used	Priority
/dev/mapper/vgroot-lvswap               partition	4194300	124872	-1
/home/swapfile                          file		1048572	0	-2

Edit /etc/fstab and add:

/home/swapfile    none    swap   sw    0    0