Adding Swap Space on a Linux System

1. Become a superuser (root) by typing:

   % su
   Password: root-password

2. Create a file in a selected directory to add swap space by typing:

   dd if=/dev/zero of=/dir/myswapfile bs=1024 count=number_blocks_needed

   where dir is a directory in which you have permission to add swap space. The myswapfile is the name of the swap file you are creating. The number_blocks_needed is an amount of 1024-byte blocks you want to create. See the dd(1) man page for more information.

3. Verify that the file was created by typing:

   ls -l /dir/myswapfile

   The new file appears in the directory.

4. Initialize the new swap area by typing:

   mkswap /dir/myswapfile

   See the mkswap(8) man page for more detailed information.

5. Run the swapon command to enable the new swap space for paging and swapping by typing the following:

   swapon -a /dir/myswapfile

6. Verify that the extra swap space was added by typing:

   swapon -s

   The output shows the allocated swap space.