Swap File

[skinner]

Hi,
I'd like to know if it's possible to make one file in VPS and make it works like a swap partition..

It works on my pc, but I don't know if it works on vps..

Thanks

skinner Reviewed by skinner on 10th Jan 2012. Swap File Hi, I'd like to know if it's possible to make one file in VPS and make it works like a swap partition.. It works on my pc, but I don't know if it works on vps.. Thanks Rating: 5

[XSLTel]

it will work on XEN/KVM based VPS.

but OpenVZ VPS unfortunately most providers don't allow that because it will use Hardware Node space.

Highest Regards
Mohammed H

[DLow]

How ever if a script needs to read swap you can add it in OpenVZ
Most hosts don't like to offer swap because of the load it generates on the SANs, I/O from alot of random reads and writes.

If swap is something you really need you can create a swap file, adjust to following to suit your needs:

1) Create a file to use as swap:
-this command will create 1GB file
dd if=/dev/zero of=/swapper bs=1M count=1024

2) Create a swap are in the file:
mkswap /swapper

3) Turn the swap on:
swapon /swapper

4) To make the swap area persistent on reboot add the following line to /etc/fstab:

/swapper swap swap defaults 0 0

5) Run:

free -m

You should now see your available swap space.

[skinner]

I've read that in some case VPS doesn't boot with swap file.. is it true?

[Krun!x]

You can't do swap on OpenVZ. The newest OVZ .32 kernel supports vSwap(where "v" stands for virtual) though but that kernel isn't stable at this time, despite what their official site says. vSwap simply isn't ready yet. Order a VPS on .32 with vSwap enabled and experience the crashes

[skinner]

Ok, I understand
I'm just curious...