The Linux Newbie Guide - mkswap Command

The Linux Newbie Guide

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Fundamentals

mkswap - Creating Swap Space

The mkswap command converts a file or partition into a swap area. The syntax is mkswap [OPTIONS] [DEVICE|FILE] [SIZE].

Option explanations:

-c:Check the device or file for any damaged blocks before creating the swap partition.
-f：Force the creation of a swap partition, even if the device or file has been formatted.
-v0：Suppress all information before creating the swap partition.
-v1： Display detailed information before creating the swap partition.
-L label：Specify a label for the swap partition.

Here's an implementation example: :

# mkswap /dev/sdb2 ←Convert a partition to swap
#
# dd if=/dev/zero of=/mnt/512MiB_swap bs=512M count=1 ←Create a 512M file using dd
# mkswap /mnt/512MiB_swap ←Convert the file to swap
Setting up swapspace version 1, size = 524284 KiB
no label, UUID=a1b69b66-0822-4fb7-b345-6bca7f7d2e5b
# file /mnt/512MiB_swap ←Verify if the file is formatted as a swap file
/mnt/512MiB_swap: Linux/i386 swap file (new style), version 1 (4K pages), size 131071 pages, no label, UUID=a1b69b66-0822-4fb7-b345-6bca7f7d2e5b

For more examples and explanations of mkswap operations, you can refer to the provided link.