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1.\" Copyright (c) 1980, 1991 Regents of the University of California.
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32.\" @(#)swapon.8 6.3 (Berkeley) 3/16/91
33.\"
34.\" Sun Dec 27 12:31:30 1992: Modified by faith@cs.unc.edu
35.\" Sat Mar 6 20:46:02 1993: Modified by faith@cs.unc.edu
36.\" Sat Oct 9 09:35:30 1993: Converted to man format by faith@cs.unc.edu
37.\" Sat Nov 27 20:22:42 1993: Updated authorship information, faith@cs.unc.edu
726f69e2 38.\" Mon Sep 25 14:12:38 1995: Added -v and -p information
fd6b7a7f 39.\" Tue Apr 30 03:32:07 1996: Added some text from A. Koppenhoefer
6dbe3af9 40.\"
232dc924 41.TH SWAPON 8 "September 1995" "util-linux" "System Administration"
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42.SH NAME
43swapon, swapoff \- enable/disable devices and files for paging and swapping
44.SH SYNOPSIS
1581e22c 45Get info:
6dbe3af9 46.br
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47.in +5
48.B swapon \-s
49.RB [ \-h ]
50.RB [ \-V ]
51.sp
52.in -5
53Enable/disable:
6dbe3af9 54.br
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55.in +5
56.B swapon
c2301380 57.RB [ \-d ]
0d761944 58.RB [ \-f ]
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59.RB [ \-p
60.IR priority ]
61.RB [ \-v ]
302e7b18 62.IR specialfile ...
fd6b7a7f 63.br
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64.B swapoff
65.RB [ \-v ]
302e7b18 66.IR specialfile ...
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67.sp
68.in -5
69Enable/disable all:
726f69e2 70.br
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71.in +5
72.B swapon \-a
73.RB [ \-e ]
0d761944 74.RB [ \-f ]
1581e22c 75.RB [ \-v ]
726f69e2 76.br
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77.B swapoff \-a
78.RB [ \-v ]
79.in -5
6dbe3af9 80.SH DESCRIPTION
ce6479e2 81.B swapon
6dbe3af9 82is used to specify devices on which paging and swapping are to take place.
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83
84The device or file used is given by the
85.I specialfile
86parameter. It may be of the form
87.BI \-L " label"
88or
89.BI \-U " uuid"
90to indicate a device by label or uuid.
91
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92Calls to
93.B swapon
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94normally occur in the system boot scripts making all swap devices available, so
95that the paging and swapping activity is interleaved across several devices and
96files.
6dbe3af9 97
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98.B swapoff
99disables swapping on the specified devices and files.
100When the
6dbe3af9 101.B \-a
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102flag is given, swapping is disabled on all known swap devices and files
103(as found in
104.I /proc/swaps
105or
106.IR /etc/fstab ).
107
108.TP
109.B "\-a, \-\-all"
ce6479e2 110All devices marked as ``swap'' in
6dbe3af9 111.I /etc/fstab
d162fcb5 112are made available, except for those with the ``noauto'' option.
ce6479e2 113Devices that are already being used as swap are silently skipped.
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114.TP
115.B "\-d, \-\-discard"
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116Discard freed swap pages before they are reused, if the swap
117device supports the discard or trim operation. This may improve
118performance on some Solid State Devices, but often it does not.
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119The
120.I /etc/fstab
121mount option
122.BI discard
123may be also used to enable discard flag.
302e7b18 124.TP
1581e22c 125.B "\-e, \-\-ifexists"
ce6479e2 126Silently skip devices that do not exist.
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127The
128.I /etc/fstab
129mount option
130.BI nofail
131may be also used to skip non-existing device.
132
756bfd01 133.TP
0d761944 134.B "\-f, \-\-fixpgsz"
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135Reinitialize (exec /sbin/mkswap) the swap space if its page size does not
136match that of the the current running kernel.
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137.B mkswap(2)
138initializes the whole device and does not check for bad blocks.
139.TP
1581e22c 140.B \-h, \-\-help
ce6479e2 141Provide help.
756bfd01 142.TP
1581e22c 143.B "\-L \fIlabel\fP"
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144Use the partition that has the specified
145.IR label .
146(For this, access to
147.I /proc/partitions
148is needed.)
726f69e2 149.TP
b456d0c7 150.B "\-p, \-\-priority \fIpriority\fP"
1581e22c 151Specify the priority of the swap device.
fd6b7a7f 152.I priority
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153is a value between 0 and 32767. Higher numbers indicate higher
154priority. See
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155.BR swapon (2)
156for a full description of swap priorities. Add
157.BI pri= value
158to the option field of
159.I /etc/fstab
160for use with
161.BR "swapon -a" .
a47f2e66 162.TP
1581e22c 163.B "\-s, \-\-summary"
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164Display swap usage summary by device. Equivalent to "cat /proc/swaps".
165Not available before Linux 2.1.25.
166.TP
1581e22c 167.B "\-U \fIuuid\fP"
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168Use the partition that has the specified
169.IR uuid .
756bfd01 170.TP
1581e22c 171.B "\-v, \-\-verbose"
a47f2e66 172Be verbose.
756bfd01 173.TP
1581e22c 174.B "\-V, \-\-version"
ce6479e2 175Display version.
1581e22c 176.SH NOTES
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177You should not use
178.B swapon
179on a file with holes.
22853e4a 180Swap over NFS may not work.
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181.PP
182.B swapon
183automatically detects and rewrites swap space signature with old software
184suspend data (e.g S1SUSPEND, S2SUSPEND, ...). The problem is that if we don't
185do it, then we get data corruption the next time an attempt at unsuspending is
186made.
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187.PP
188.B swapon
189may not work correctly when using a swap file with some versions of btrfs.
190This is due to the swap file implementation in the kernel expecting to be able
191to write to the file directly, without the assistance of the file system.
192Since btrfs is a copy-on-write file system, the file location may not be
193static and corruption can result. Btrfs actively disallows the use of files
194on its file systems by refusing to map the file. This can be seen in the system
195log as "swapon: swapfile has holes." One possible workaround is to map the
196file to a loopback device. This will allow the file system to determine the
197mapping properly but may come with a performance impact.
198
6dbe3af9 199.SH SEE ALSO
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200.BR swapon (2),
201.BR swapoff (2),
202.BR fstab (5),
203.BR init (8),
204.BR mkswap (8),
205.BR rc (8),
206.BR mount (8)
6dbe3af9 207.SH FILES
6dbe3af9 208.br
726f69e2 209.I /dev/sd??
1581e22c 210standard paging devices
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211.br
212.I /etc/fstab
213ascii filesystem description table
214.SH HISTORY
215The
216.B swapon
217command appeared in 4.0BSD.
86d62711 218.SH AVAILABILITY
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219The swapon command is part of the util-linux package and is available from
220ftp://ftp.kernel.org/pub/linux/utils/util-linux/.