Linux swap partition management

Table of Contents

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Creating a new swap space from a new disk

• Format the new partition with:

mkswap /dev/sdx1

• Add the new swap partition to /etc/fstab

/dev/sdx1 swap swap defaults 0 0

• Run swapon -a to activate the new swap.

Creating a new swap file

Create the file. This command creates a 1 gigabyte file:

dd if=/dev/zero of=/swap bs=1M count=1000

Format the swap file:

mkswap /swap

Add the new swap file to /etc/fstab:

/swap swap swap defaults 0 0

Run swapon -a to activate immediately the new swap space.

Deactivating an existing swap space

• Run “swapoff -a“
• Comment / delete the related entry on file /etc/fstab

/dev/sdx1 swap swap defaults 0 0