swapon

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



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

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.

       specialfile means file, device, LABEL=label_name or UUID=uuid.

       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)