SWAPON
NAME SYNOPSIS DESCRIPTION NOTE SEE ALSO FILES HISTORY
swapon, swapoff - enable/disable devices and files for paging and swapping
/sbin/swapon [-h -V? /sbin/swapon -a [-v? /sbin/swapon [-v? [-p__ ''priority''__? specialfile ... /sbin/swapon [-s? /sbin/swapoff [-h -V? /sbin/swapoff -a /sbin/swapoff specialfile ...
Swapon is used to specify devices on which paging and swapping are to take place. Calls to swapon normally occur in the system multi-user initialization file /etc/rc making all swap devices available, so that the paging and swapping activity is interleaved across several devices and files.
Normally, the first form is used:
-h
Provide help
-V
Display version
-s
Display swap usage summary by device. This option is only available if /proc/swaps exists (probably not before kernel 2.1.25).
-a
All devices marked as ``sw swap devices in /etc/fstab'' are made available.
-p priority
Specify priority for swapon. This option is only available if swapon was compiled under and is used under a 1.3.2 or later kernel. priority is a value between 0 and 32767. See swapon(2) for a full description of swap priorities. Add pri=value to the option field of /etc/fstab for use with swapon -a.
Swapoff disables swapping on the specified devices and files, or on all swap entries in /etc/fstab when the -a flag is given.
You should not use swapon on a file with holes. Swap over NFS may not work.
swapon(2), swapoff(2), fstab(5), init(8), mkswap(8), rc(8)?, mount(8)
/dev/hd?? standard paging devices /dev/sd?? standard (SCSI) paging devices /etc/fstab ascii filesystem description table
The swapon command appeared in 4.0BSD.