NAME
mkswap - set up a Linux swap area
SYNOPSIS
mkswap [options] device [blocks]
mkswap [options] --size size --file file
DESCRIPTION
mkswap sets up a Linux swap area on a device or in a file.
The device argument will usually be a disk partition (something like /dev/sdb7) but can also be a file. The Linux kernel does not look at partition IDs, but many installation scripts will assume that partitions of hex type 82 (LINUX_SWAP) are meant to be swap partitions. (Warning: Solaris also uses this type. Be careful not to kill your Solaris partitions.)
The blocks parameter is superfluous but retained for backwards compatibility. (It specifies the desired size of the swap area in 1024-byte blocks. mkswap will use the entire partition or file if it is omitted. Specifying it is unwise - a typo may destroy your disk.)
After creating the swap area, you need the swapon(8) command to start using it. Usually swap areas are listed in /etc/fstab so that they can be taken into use at boot time by a swapon -a command in some boot script.
WARNING
The swap header does not touch the first block. A boot loader or disk label can be there, but it is not a recommended setup. The recommended setup is to use a separate partition for a Linux swap area.
mkswap, like many others mkfs-like utils, erases the first partition block to make any previous filesystem invisible.
However, mkswap refuses to erase the first block on a device with a disk label (SUN, BSD, ...).
OPTIONS
-c, --check
-F, --file
-f, --force
Also, without this option, mkswap will refuse to erase the first block on a device with a partition table.
-q, --quiet
-L, --labellabel
--lock[=mode]
-p, --pagesizesize
-U, --uuidUUID
clear
random
time
-e, --endiannessENDIANNESS
-o, --offsetoffset
-s, --sizesize
-v, --swapversion 1
--verbose
-h, --help
-V, --version
ENVIRONMENT
LIBBLKID_DEBUG=all
LOCK_BLOCK_DEVICE=<mode>
NOTES
The maximum useful size of a swap area depends on the architecture and the kernel version.
The maximum number of the pages that is possible to address by swap area header is 4294967295 (32-bit unsigned int). The remaining space on the swap device is ignored.
Presently, Linux allows 32 swap areas. The areas in use can be seen in the file /proc/swaps.
mkswap refuses areas smaller than 10 pages.
If you don’t know the page size that your machine uses, you can look it up with getconf PAGESIZE.
Aside from mkswap --file, it is also possible to create the swapfile manually before initializing it with mkswap, e.g. using a command like
Since version 2.41, mkswap --file sets the nocow attribute for newly created files to support swapfiles on Btrfs.
# dd if=/dev/zero of=swapfile bs=1MiB count=$((8*1024))to create 8GiB swapfile.
In such a case, please read notes from swapon(8) about the swap file use restrictions (holes, preallocation and copy-on-write issues).
SEE ALSO
fdisk(8), swapon(8)
REPORTING BUGS
For bug reports, use the issue tracker <https://github.com/util-linux/util-linux/issues>.
AVAILABILITY
The mkswap command is part of the util-linux package which can be downloaded from Linux Kernel Archive <https://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/utils/util-linux/>.