Finally adding that swap file

Robert Nichols rnicholsNOSPAM at comcast.net
Sun Oct 30 03:01:11 UTC 2005


Dotan Cohen wrote:
> On 10/30/05, Robert Nichols <rnicholsNOSPAM at comcast.net> wrote:
> 
>>Dotan Cohen wrote:
>>
>>>On 10/29/05, Bruno Wolff III <bruno at wolff.to> wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>>I think it is probably better to add the entry to /etc/fstab and use swapon -a
>>>>so that you can just make changes to /etc/fstab and not have to muck with
>>>>rc.local after every swapfile change.
>>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>Thanks. I dont intend to change swapfiles ever again! So in that sense
>>>I will add the line to /etc/fstab, and add "swapon -a" to the end of
>>>rc.local. I just want to hear someone say "You wont break anything"
>>>before I do that.
>>
>>"swapon -a" uses /etc/fstab to find swap files and partitions.  If you
>>don't want to put an entry in /etc/fstab, then you have to give swapon
>>an argument that explicitly identifies the swap file or partition.
>>
>>Bob Nichols         Yes, "NOSPAM" is really part of my email address.
>>
> 
> 
> I have no problem modifying fstab, I just want to know that I'm not
> causing any damage. I'm no system admin here, and I would have no way
> of fixing it if I broke something and couldn't boot if I couldn't post
> here. So I'm double checking before I break something.

OK, I guess I got a bit confused reading through the whole thread.  It's
pretty unlikely that you will break anything.  If swapon doesn't find
a properly formatted swap file (you did run "mkswap" on the file,
right?), it will just complain and refuse to use it.

The only real danger is running "mkswap" on a partition (e.g.,
"mkswap /dev/hda6") when what you wanted to do was format a swap file
on the file system within that partition (e.g., "mkswap /dir/sfile").
That's a really quick way to clobber the superblock on a filesystem.
(The damage is recoverable, once you've recovered from your panic
attack.)

-- 
Bob Nichols         Yes, "NOSPAM" is really part of my email address.




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