.\" $NetBSD: swapctl.8,v 1.29 2003/12/21 02:52:02 mrg Exp $ .\" .\" Copyright (c) 1997 Matthew R. Green .\" All rights reserved. .\" .\" Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without .\" modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions .\" are met: .\" 1. Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright .\" notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer. .\" 2. Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright .\" notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the .\" documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution. .\" 3. The name of the author may not be used to endorse or promote products .\" derived from this software without specific prior written permission. .\" .\" THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE AUTHOR ``AS IS'' AND ANY EXPRESS OR .\" IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES .\" OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE ARE DISCLAIMED. .\" IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHOR BE LIABLE FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, .\" INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES (INCLUDING, .\" BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS OR SERVICES; .\" LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION) HOWEVER CAUSED .\" AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT LIABILITY, .\" OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY .\" OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF .\" SUCH DAMAGE. .\" .Dd December 20, 2003 .Dt SWAPCTL 8 .Os .Sh NAME .Nm swapctl , .Nm swapon .Nd system swap management tool .Sh SYNOPSIS .Nm .Fl A .Op Fl p Ar priority .Op Fl t Ar blk|noblk .Nm .Fl D Ar dumpdev .Nm .Fl U .Op Fl t Ar blk|noblk .Nm .Fl a .Op Fl p Ar priority .Ar path .Nm .Fl c .Fl p Ar priority .Ar path .Nm .Fl d .Ar path .Nm .Fl l | Fl s .Op Fl k | Fl m | Fl g .Op Fl h .Nm .Fl z .Nm swapon .Fl a | Ar path .Sh DESCRIPTION The .Nm program adds, removes, lists and prioritizes swap devices and files for the system. The .Nm swapon program acts the same as the .Nm program, as if called with the .Fl a option, except if .Nm swapon itself is called with .Fl a in which case, .Nm swapon acts as .Nm with the .Fl A option. .Pp The following options are available: .Bl -tag -width 123456 .It Fl A This option causes .Nm to read the .Pa /etc/fstab file for devices and files with a .Dq sw and .Dq dp type, and adds all these entries as swap devices, or for a dump device in the case of a .Dq dp type. If no swap devices are configured, .Nm will exit with an error code. .It Fl D The .Fl D option requires that a .Ar dumpdev also be in the argument list. The kernel dump device is set to .Ar dumpdev . This changed is made via the .Xr swapctl 2 system call. The dump device is used when the system crashes to write a current snapshot of real memory, to be saved later with .Xr savecore 8 at system reboot, and analyzed to determine the problem. .It Fl U This option causes .Nm to read the .Pa /etc/fstab file for devices and files with a .Dq sw type, and remove all these entries as swap devices. If no swap devices are unconfigured, .Nm will exit with an error code. .It Fl a The .Fl a option requires that a .Ar path also be in the argument list. The .Ar path is added to the kernel's list of swap devices using the .Xr swapctl 2 system call. When using the .Nm swapon form of this command, the .Fl a option is treated the same as the .Fl A option, for backwards compatibility. .It Fl c The .Fl c option changes the priority of the listed swap device or file. .It Fl d The .Fl d option removes the listed .Ar path from the kernel's list of swap devices or files. .It Fl l The .Fl l option lists the current swap devices and files, and their usage statistics. .It Fl s The .Fl s option displays a single line summary of current swap statistics. .It Fl p The .Fl p option sets the priority of swap devices or files to the .Ar priority argument. This works with the .\" .Fl d , .Fl a , .Fl c , and .Fl l options. .It Fl k The .Fl k option uses 1024 byte blocks instead of the default 512 byte. .It Fl m The .Fl m option uses (1024 * 1024) byte blocks instead of the default 512 byte. .It Fl g The .Fl g option uses (1024 * 1024 * 1024) byte blocks instead of the default 512 byte. .It Fl h The .Fl h option uses .Xr humanize_number 3 to display the sizes. .It Fl t This flag modifies the function of the .Fl A and .Fl U options. The .Fl t option allows the type of device to add to be specified. An argument of .Ar blk causes all block devices in .Pa /etc/fstab to be added. An argument of .Ar noblk causes all non-block devices in .Pa /etc/fstab to be added. This option is useful in early system startup, where swapping may be needed before all file systems are available, such as during disk checks of large file systems. .It Fl z The .Fl z option displays the current dump device. .El .Sh SWAP PRIORITY The .Nx swap system allows different swap devices and files to be assigned different priorities, to allow the faster resources to be used first. Swap devices at the same priority are used in a round-robin fashion until there is no more space available at this priority, when the next priority level will be used. The default priority is 0, the highest. This value can be any valid integer, with higher values receiving less priority. .Sh SWAP OPTIONS When parsing the .Pa /etc/fstab file for swap devices, the following options are recognized: .Pp .Bl -tag -width nfsmntpt=/path -compact .It priority=N This option sets the priority of the specified swap device to N. .It nfsmntpt=/path This option is useful for swapping to NFS files. It specifies the local mount point to mount an NFS filesystem. The mount point must exist as a directory. Typically, once this mount has succeeded, the file to be used for swapping on will be available under this point mount. For example: .Bd -literal server:/export/swap/client none swap sw,nfsmntpt=/swap .Ed .El .Sh SEE ALSO .Xr swapctl 2 , .Xr fstab 5 , .Xr mount_nfs 8 .Sh HISTORY The .Nm program was first made available in .Nx 1.3 . The original .Nm swapon program, provided for backwards compatibility, appeared in .Bx 4.0 . .Sh AUTHORS The .Nm program was written by .An Matthew R. Green Aq mrg@eterna.com.au . .Sh BUGS If no swap information is specified in .Pa /etc/fstab , the system startup scripts (see .Xr rc 8 ) will configure no swap space and your machine will behave very badly if (more likely when) it runs out of real memory. .Pp Local and remote swap files cannot be configured until after the file systems they reside on are mounted read/write. The system startup scripts need to .Xr fsck 8 all local file systems before this can happen. This process requires substantial amounts of memory on some systems. If you configure no local block swap devices on a machine that has local file systems to check and rely only on swap files, the machine will have no swap space at all during system .Xr fsck 8 and may run out of real memory, causing fsck to abnormally exit and startup scripts to fail.