How to Add Swap Space on Debian 11
This guide is applicable only for KVM based VPSes and dedicated servers, If you wish to increase swap on your OpenVZ based VPS please contact us via a Support ticket from the client area.
Check Swap Information
Command to check swap size.
swapon --show
Output:
root@server:~# swapon --show
NAME TYPE SIZE USED PRIO
/dev/vda5 partition 1.9G 0B -2
Or you can check using free
command.
free -m
Output:
root@server:~# free -m
total used free shared buff/cache available
Mem: 3930 200 3104 5 625 3500
Swap: 1951 0 1951
NOTE: If the output is empty, it means that swap space is not enabled yet on your system.
Add Swap to your VPS
Command to create a Swap file.
NOTE: We are adding 1GB if you want to add different size then you can replace it in place of 1G
fallocate -l 1G /swapfile
or
dd if=/dev/zero of=/swapfile bs=1024 count=1048576
Set write permission.[Default permissions only enable for root user]
chmod 600 /swapfile
Set up a swap area on the file.
mkswap /swapfile
Output:
root@server:~# mkswap /swapfile
mkswap: /swapfile: warning: wiping old swap signature.
Setting up swapspace version 1, size = 1024 MiB (1073737728 bytes)
no label, UUID=145336f9-b45a-4bd7-8f26-d972f4df9640
Activate the swap file.
swapon /swapfile
Open the following file and add the given content to change it to permanent.
nano /etc/fstab
Add the following line.
/swapfile swap swap defaults 0 0
Now check the swap size.
swapon --show
or
free -m
Output:
root@server:~# swapon --show
NAME TYPE SIZE USED PRIO
/dev/vda5 partition 1.9G 0B -2
/swapfile file 1024M 0B -3
root@server:~# free -m
total used free shared buff/cache available
Mem: 3930 202 3099 5 627 3497
Swap: 2975 0 2975
NOTE: Now the added swap space can be seen.
Remove Swap file
Deactivate the swap space.
swapoff -v /swapfile
Output:
root@vps:~# swapoff -v /swapfile
swapoff /swapfile
Next, remove the following line from the file /etc/fstab
/swapfile swap swap defaults 0 0
Command to remove the file.
rm /swapfile
This concludes our topic of configuring swap in Debian.
If you can not configure and facing technical difficulties, kindly reach out to us via Support Ticket.
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