How to create swap file

Create swap file to optimize virtual machine configuration or just immediately increase available swap space.

Debian version.

$ lsb_release -a

No LSB modules are available.
Distributor ID: Debian
Description:    Debian GNU/Linux 10 (buster)
Release:        10
Codename:       buster

Display current memory and swap usage.

$ free -h

total        used        free      shared  buff/cache   available
Mem:          231Mi        50Mi        22Mi       0.0Ki       157Mi       171Mi
Swap:         1.0Gi       6.0Mi       1.0Gi

Create swap file.

$ sudo dd if=/dev/zero of=/local.swap count=4 bs=1GiB

4+0 records in
4+0 records out
4294967296 bytes (4.3 GB, 4.0 GiB) copied, 59.6617 s, 72.0 MB/s

Set proper user and group.

$ sudo chown root:root /local.swap

Set proper permissions.

$ sudo chmod 600 /local.swap

Display swap file details.

$ ls -lh /local.swap

-rw------- 1 root root 4.0G Feb 16 20:42 /local.swap

Set up swap file.

$ sudo mkswap /swap.file

Setting up swapspace version 1, size = 4 GiB (4294963200 bytes)
no label, UUID=e7a648c2-a161-4818-932f-a08af41e88fd

Activate swap file.

$ sudo swapon /local.swap

Display swap summary.

$ sudo swapon --summary

Filename                                Type            Size    Used    Priority
/dev/sda5                               partition       1046524 16424   -2
/local.swap                             file            4194300 0       -3

Display current memory and swap usage.

$ free -h

total        used        free      shared  buff/cache   available
Mem:          231Mi        44Mi       143Mi       0.0Ki        42Mi       178Mi
Swap:         5.0Gi        16Mi       5.0Gi

Ensure that this solution is persistent across a reboot.

$ sudo echo "/local.swap swap swap sw 0 0" | sudo tee -a /etc/fstab

/local.swap swap swap sw 0 0