{"id":432,"date":"2013-10-30T12:16:00","date_gmt":"2013-10-30T12:16:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/opstree.com\/blog\/\/2013\/10\/30\/how-to-create-an-extra-swap-space-using-file-system\/"},"modified":"2026-01-08T12:36:20","modified_gmt":"2026-01-08T07:06:20","slug":"how-to-create-an-extra-swap-space-using-file-system","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/opstree.com\/blog\/2013\/10\/30\/how-to-create-an-extra-swap-space-using-file-system\/","title":{"rendered":"How to create an extra swap space using file system"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Sometimes you feel constrained due to the the RAM limit of your system especially when you are running heavy duty software\u2019s, in this blog I’ll talk about how you can overcome this problem by hav\u200cing an extra swap space to give you extra computing power<\/p>\n

First of all you can execute swapon<\/i> command to check how much swap space you already have in your system
\n$ swapon -s
\nFilename\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Type\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Size\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Used\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Priority
\n\/dev\/sda5\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 partition\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 8130556\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 44732\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 -1<\/i><\/p>\n

The above output gives you an indication that you already have a swap space at partition \/dev\/sda5. The numbers under “Size” and “Used” are in kilobytes. Though I have considerable amount of swap space configured on my system :), let’s continue and try to create a new swap using file system. Before starting with creation of swap space let’s make sure that I’ve enough disk space available in my system<\/p>\n

$df -h
\nFilesystem\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Size\u00a0 Used Avail Use% Mounted on
\n\/dev\/sda3\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 448G\u00a0 123G\u00a0 303G\u00a0 29% \/
\nudev\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 1.9G\u00a0 4.0K\u00a0 1.9G\u00a0\u00a0 1% \/dev
\ntmpfs\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 767M\u00a0\u00a0 40M\u00a0 727M\u00a0\u00a0 6% \/run
\nnone\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 5.0M\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 0\u00a0 5.0M\u00a0\u00a0 0% \/run\/lock
\nnone\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 1.9G\u00a0 804K\u00a0 1.9G\u00a0\u00a0 1% \/run\/shm<\/i><\/p>\n

So I’ve a powerful system with 303G of disk space still available, that means I have a liberty of creating a swap space of my liking. I’ll user the data dump(dd) <\/b><\/i><\/a>command to my supplementary swap file, make sure that you would be running this command using root user.
\n$dd if=\/dev\/zero of=\/home\/sandy\/extraswap bs=1M count=512
\n512+0 records in
\n512+0 records out
\n536870912 bytes (537 MB) copied, 2.41354 s, 222 MB\/s<\/i><\/p>\n

Now we have created a file \/home\/sandy\/extraswap<\/i> of size 512M which we will be using as a swap partition. Swap can be created by issuing mksw<\/b><\/i>a<\/b><\/i>p<\/b><\/i> command
\n$mkswap \/home\/sandy\/extraswap
\nSetting up swapspace version 1, size = 524284 KiB
\nno label, UUID=685ac04a-ad31-48a8-83df-9ffa3dbc6982<\/i><\/p>\n

Finally we have to run swapon command on our newly created swap partition to bring it into the game
\n$swapon -s
\nFilename\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Type\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Size\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Used\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Priority
\n\/dev\/sda5\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 partition\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 8130556\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 46248\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 -1
\n$swapon \/home\/sandy\/extraswap
\n$swapon -s
\nFilename\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Type\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Size\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Used\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Priority
\n\/dev\/sda5\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 partition\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 8130556\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 46248\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 -1
\n\/home\/sandy\/extraswap\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 file\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 524284\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 -2<\/i><\/p>\n

As you can notice when we first executed the swapon -s<\/i> command at that time swap partition was not in the picture, once we executed the command swapon \/home\/sandy\/extraswap<\/i>\u00a0 the swap partition was available.<\/p>\n

One last thing that we have to do is to add the entry of this swap partition in our \/etc\/fstab<\/b><\/i><\/a> file as with the next system boot the swap partition will not be active by default we have to do the entry of this swap in our \/etc\/fstab file.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sometimes you feel constrained due to the the RAM limit of your system especially when you are running heavy duty software\u2019s, in this blog I’ll talk about how you can overcome this problem by hav\u200cing an extra swap space to give you extra computing power First of all you can execute swapon command to check … Continue reading “How to create an extra swap space using file system”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":171775670,"featured_media":29900,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_coblocks_attr":"","_coblocks_dimensions":"","_coblocks_responsive_height":"","_coblocks_accordion_ie_support":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[28070474,610],"tags":[768739285,28382],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/opstree.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/DevSecOps-1.jpg","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pfDBOm-6Y","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/opstree.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/432"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/opstree.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/opstree.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/opstree.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/171775670"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/opstree.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=432"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/opstree.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/432\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":30309,"href":"https:\/\/opstree.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/432\/revisions\/30309"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/opstree.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29900"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/opstree.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=432"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/opstree.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=432"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/opstree.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=432"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}