Ubuntu 2gb Swap File

March 8, 2014 14.8k views
dick
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dick
I was getting a Wordpress database connection error every other day. I created a 512 swap file (1GB droplet) and it made it about a week. I'm trying to increase the swap file 2GB. Here are the steps I took. sudo swapoff /swapfile sudo dd if=/dev/zero of=swapfile bs=2048 count=1048576 sudo mkswap /swapfile It reports: Setting up swapspace version 1, size = 1048572 KiB... sudo swapon /swapfile It looks like it only created a 1GB swapfile. When I use free-m it says 1023 for the swap. The file size via WinSCP is 2GB. Is there a limit on the size of a swap file? If so, can I have two swap files? Or should I get a bigger droplet?
1 comment
  • rpashoukos August 31, 2014

    On the original article how-to-configure-virtual-memory-swap-file-on-a-vps , it used count=1000 , I looked at the man page but did not make sense to me. I guess it works either way but wondered what the difference was.

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4 Answers
kamaln7 MOD March 8, 2014 
sudo dd if=/dev/zero of=swapfile bs=2048 count=1048576
should be
sudo dd if=/dev/zero of=/swapfile bs=2048 count=1048576
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dick March 9, 2014
Yep, that was it. I redid all those steps replacing the dd with yours and it free -m now shows 2047. Thanks for the help.
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nhatkhoa April 18, 2014
Hi,

i use this command :

sudo dd if=/dev/zero of=/swapfile bs=1024 count=2048k

is it correct ?

i checked with "top" command it it show

KiB Swap: 2150396

is there anything wrong with my command or not ?

what is "bs=2048 " mean ?

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asb MOD April 18, 2014
@nhatkhoa:

"bs" stands for block size. So each "block" will be 2048 bytes. The Wikipedia article on the topic is pretty good:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dd_(Unix)#Block_size

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