diff options
Diffstat (limited to 'content/posts/swap-file-linux.md')
| -rw-r--r-- | content/posts/swap-file-linux.md | 39 |
1 files changed, 39 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/content/posts/swap-file-linux.md b/content/posts/swap-file-linux.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..1396adb --- /dev/null +++ b/content/posts/swap-file-linux.md @@ -0,0 +1,39 @@ +--- +title: "Creating a Swap File on Linux" +date: 2019-06-10T10:03:00 +tags: ["formats", "guides", "linux", "servers", "snippets", "software"] +--- + +I've recently moved from a server with more than enough RAM, to a lower spec (and significantly cheaper!) VPS that still does 99% of what I want it to. + +The issue however is that with the reduced RAM there's a very real possibility of running out and locking up the system. The easy (and cheap) solution is to add a swap file instead of repartitioning my disk space. + +The notes here work with a 1GB swap file, but feel free to change these if need be. + +Firstly we're going to create the file, set permissions and enable the swap file: +``` +sudo fallocate -l 1G /swap +sudo chmod 600 /swap +sudo mkswap /swap +sudo swapon /swap +``` + +This can then be mounted on boot by editing your `/etc/fstab` file and adding the following line: +``` +/swap swap swap defaults 0 0 +``` + +Now you can check this swap space is working by: +``` +sudo swapon --show +``` + +Now the swap file is up and running, you can decide if you want to alter the *[swappiness](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paging#Swappiness)* value on your system which dictates how the file should be used. The default value on my system was `60`, but I've altered it to `10` using the below commands: +``` +cat /proc/sys/vm/swappiness +sudo sysctl vm.swappiness=10 +``` +To make this change permanent, you'll need to write the value to your `sysctl.conf` file via: +``` +echo "vm.swappiness=10" | sudo tee -a /etc/sysctl.conf +``` |