swapon

SWAPON(8)                  Linux Programmer's Manual                 SWAPON(8)



NAME
       swapon, swapoff - enable/disable devices and files for paging and swap-
       ping

SYNOPSIS
       /sbin/swapon [-h -V]
       /sbin/swapon -a [-v] [-e]
       /sbin/swapon [-v] [-p priority]  specialfile ...
       /sbin/swapon [-s]
       /sbin/swapoff [-h -V]
       /sbin/swapoff -a
       /sbin/swapoff specialfile ...

DESCRIPTION
       Swapon is used to specify devices on which paging and swapping  are  to
       take  place.   Calls  to swapon normally occur in the system multi-user
       initialization file /etc/rc making all swap devices available, so  that
       the  paging and swapping activity is interleaved across several devices
       and files.

       Normally, the first form is used:

       -h     Provide help

       -V     Display version

       -s     Display  swap  usage  summary  by  device.  Equivalent  to  "cat
              /proc/swaps".  Not available before Linux 2.1.25.

       -a     All  devices  marked  as ``swap'' swap devices in /etc/fstab are
              made available. Devices that are already  running  as  swap  are
              silently skipped.

       -e     When  -a  is  used  with  swapon,  -e makes swapon silently skip
              devices that do not exist.

       -p priority
              Specify priority for swapon.  This option is only  available  if
              swapon  was  compiled  under  and is used under a 1.3.2 or later
              kernel.  priority is a value between 0 and 32767. See  swapon(2)
              for  a full description of swap priorities. Add pri=value to the
              option field of /etc/fstab for use with swapon -a.

       Swapoff disables swapping on the specified devices and files.  When the
       -a  flag  is  given, swapping is disabled on all known swap devices and
       files (as found in /proc/swaps or /etc/fstab).

NOTE
       You should not use swapon on a file with holes.  Swap over NFS may  not
       work.

SEE ALSO
       swapon(2), swapoff(2), fstab(5), init(8), mkswap(8), rc(8), mount(8)

FILES
       /dev/hd??  standard paging devices
       /dev/sd??  standard (SCSI) paging devices
       /etc/fstab ascii filesystem description table

HISTORY
       The swapon command appeared in 4.0BSD.



Linux 1.x                      25 September 1995                     SWAPON(8)