Create a swap file on Linux
The simple following steps will create a swap file. Swap files are used when the operating system need more memory. It uses the swap space as memory. Its usage shall be limited, since a swap space is less efficient than memory. It will save you a memory upgrade if it is need seldomly.
- swapon –show
- Display the current status of the swap spaces
- sudo dd if=/dev/zero of=/swapfile bs=1024 count=8388608
- Create a swap file of 8 GB (8388608 / 1024 / 1024)
- sudo mkswap /swapfile
- Prepare the file to be used as a swap file
- sudo chown root:root /swapfile
- Set the owner of the swap file
- sudo chmod 600 /swapfile
- Set the permissions of the swap file
- sudo swapon /swapfile
- Enable the swap file. Reboot is not required.
- swapon –show
- Display the status of the new swap space