---
title: Swapfile instead of partition
layout: default
created: 2009-08-24 22:13:58 +0200
updated: 2009-08-24 22:13:58 +0200
toc: false
tags:
  - know-how
  - software
  - linux
---
If you don't want to create a designated swap partition (e.g. if you plan to downsize it later) and don't want to play
around with *GPartEd*, you can create a swap**file** instead.

To create a 512 MiB swapfile, do the following:

    dd if=/dev/zero of=/swapfile bs=1024K count=512
    mkswap /swapfile
    swapon /swapfile

To automatically add the swapfile upon boot, add this line to the `/etc/fstab`:

    /swapfile     swap     swap     defaults     0    0


You can later easily change the size of the swapfile by re-creating a smaller or larger one.

You only have to make sure the file is contiguous or `swapon` might give an error.
