Making a swap space
 

As my swap partition is dead, I tried to resurcitae it by making the following file. I use the 'vi' to creat the file. As a matter of fact, I copied the file from a website. The name of this file is 'Swap space'.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-#!/bin/sh
#
# swapinit.sh - activate the swap partition
#
# written by Rahul U. Joshi
# Verify and initialize swap space
#

echo -n 'Verifying swap space... '

loopcount=0

# flag to indicate whether the partition has been activated or not
activated=0

# check for signatures 6 times before giving up
while [ $loopcount -lt 6 ]
do

if [ "`/bin/dd 2>/dev/null if=/dev/winswap bs=1 count=10 skip=4086`" = 'SWAP-SPACE' ]; then
echo "Linux signature found, iteration $loopcount"
echo "Activating swap partitions"
swapon /dev/winswap
activated=1
break

elif [ "`/bin/dd 2>/dev/null if=/dev/winswap bs=1 count=11 skip=43`" = 'SWAP SPACE ' ]; then
echo "DOS signature found, iteration $loopcount"
echo "Making swap partition"
mkswap /dev/winswap YYYYY
echo "Activating swap partitions"
swapon /dev/winswap
activated=1
break

else
let loopcount=loopcount+1
fi

done


if [ $activated -ne 1 ] ; then
echo "Swap signature not found after $loopcount tries"
echo "No swapping partitions activated"
exit 1
fi
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

1. Use the 'vi' editor to make the file.

2. Wrote ' chmod 755 Swap space

3. ./Swap space

I got the following message
-------------------------------------------------------

[nissanka@c83-250-90-204 nissanka]$ ./Swap
Verifying swap space... Swap signature not found after 6 tries
No swapping partitions activated
[nissanka@c83-250-90-204 nissanka]$

What is the problem?

I looked deep into my 'dev' folder; there is no folder or file called 'winswap' . This may be the problem. What is this?

Hi -

Be *very* careful: you can easily trash your system.

But here's all the script is really doing:

1. "Su" to "root"
su - root

2. Identify your existing swap partition:
swapon -s
Filename Type Size Used Priority
/dev/hda3 partition 2097136 0 42
<= EXAMPLE OUTPUT: THIS SYSTEM HAS A SWAP PARTITION ON "/dev/hda3"

3. (Re)initialize the swap area
swapoff /dev/hda3
mkswap /dev/hda3
swapon /dev/hda3

The 'swapon -s ' command didn't gave me an output. Please read the following:

[nissanka@c83-250-90-204 nissanka]$ su root
Password:
[root@c83-250-90-204 nissanka]# swapon -s
[root@c83-250-90-204 nissanka]# swapon -s
[root@c83-250-90-204 nissanka]#


[root@c83-250-90-204 sbin]# swapon -s
[root@c83-250-90-204 sbin]#

-----------------------------------------------------------------------
However, I found the following file in 'sbin' folder.
mkswap*
---------------------------------------------------------------------------


------------------------------------------------------------
When I wrote the ' cat mkswap * ' and pressed enter. I couldn't read anything. Just some binary stuff.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------


What is the meaning of * 'at the end of the word 'mkswap' ?

Some files has @.
What does this @ sign means?

My swapfile is --> hda10@

OK, if you're sure /dev/hda10 is supposed to be your swap partition (if you're really REALLY sure!), then:

mkswap /dev/hda10
swapon /dev/hda10

Now I have a swap space or rather swap file on my system. Please read the following:


[nissanka@c83-250-90-204 nissanka]$ cd /proc
[nissanka@c83-250-90-204 proc]$ cat meminfo
MemTotal: 125304 kB
MemFree: 1680 kB
Buffers: 1000 kB
Cached: 41940 kB
SwapCached: 0 kB
Active: 109404 kB
Inactive: 2268 kB
HighTotal: 0 kB
HighFree: 0 kB
LowTotal: 125304 kB
LowFree: 1680 kB
SwapTotal: 0 kB
SwapFree: 0 kB
Dirty: 36 kB
Writeback: 0 kB
Mapped: 104760 kB
Slab: 8048 kB
Committed_AS: 139220 kB
PageTables: 1156 kB
VmallocTotal: 909236 kB
VmallocUsed: 2564 kB
VmallocChunk: 906256 kB
[nissanka@c83-250-90-204 proc]$

Please tell me if the swap file is still inactive.

The '@' normally means that your are looking at a symlink rather than an actual file/device. `ls -l` will show you where the symlink is referring to.

It would appear that your swap partition is still inactive. See the 'TotalSwap' field, that says 0Kb

Perhaps you would like to post the output of `fdisk -l /dev/hda`. That way someone will be able to tell you if hda10 is indeed a swap partition. Then post the contents of /etc/fstab

disclaimer: I am not much of an expert ;)

Thanks Phill for the reply.

[nissanka@c83-250-90-204 nissanka]$ su root
Password:
[root@c83-250-90-204 nissanka]# fdisk -l /dev/hda

Disk /dev/hda: 61.4 GB, 61492838400 bytesThe 'hda 10 ' is the boot partition and all my work lies on ' hda 9 ' partition.

255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 7476 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/hda1 1 229 1839411 16 Hidden FAT16
/dev/hda2 * 262 390 1036192+ b W95 FAT32
/dev/hda3 391 7476 56918295 f W95 Ext'd (LBA)
/dev/hda5 391 1832 11582833+ 7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/hda6 1833 3649 14595021 b W95 FAT32
/dev/hda7 3650 4802 9261441 b W95 FAT32
/dev/hda8 4803 6447 13213431 b W95 FAT32
/dev/hda9 6448 7219 6201058+ 83 Linux
/dev/hda10 7220 7291 578308+ 83 Linux
/dev/hda11 7292 7476 1485981 83 Linux
[root@c83-250-90-204 nissanka]#


It was 'hda11' is my swap partition. I made a mistake by saying it was 'hda10' .
The 'hda 10 ' is the boot partition and all my work lies on ' hda 9 ' partition.

Please post the contents of /etc/fstab

hda11 is 1.5Gb and hda10 is ~550Mb, and seeing your using Mandrake I would expect that your system is not installed on hda10.

Which ever partition you intended to be your swap (I can tell you this from /etc/fstab) you need to change the partition type from 83 (Linux) to 82 (Linux Swap). You can do this with any partitioning tool. Once that has been done you can then do `mkswap ...` and `swapon ...`.

For reference:
You can see /dev/hda5 is my swap partition and is of a different type to my other Linux partitions

All my programs are on ' hda 9 ' partition.


[root@c83-250-90-204 etc]# cat fstab
/dev/hda9 / ext2 defaults 1 1
/dev/hda10 /boot ext2 defaults 1 2
none /dev/pts devpts mode=0620 0 0
/dev/hdc /mnt/cdrom auto umask=0,user,iocharset=iso8859-1,codepage=850,noauto,ro,exec 0 0
/dev/hdd /mnt/cdrom2 auto umask=0,user,iocharset=iso8859-1,codepage=850,noauto,ro,exec 0 0
none /mnt/floppy supermount dev=/dev/fd0,fs=ext2:vfat,--,umask=0,iocharset=iso8859-1,sync,codepage=850 0 0
/dev/hda5 /mnt/win_d ntfs umask=0,nls=iso8859-1,ro 0 0
/dev/hda2 /mnt/win_h vfat umask=0,iocharset=iso8859-1,codepage=850 0 0
none /proc proc defaults 0 0
/dev/hda11 /tmp ext2 defaults 1 2
[root@c83-250-90-204 etc]#

I believe this code was from a howto on sharing the same swap space with windows and linux. Is this your intention?

If not then I suggest changing the swap partition ID from 83 to 82 via fdisk and then formating the partition as previously stated. Does your /etc/fstab file have an entry for the swap partition?

Futhermore,
Your /tmp is directory is mounted to /dev/hda11. Did you originally setup a swap partition?

No, Windows and Linux are completely different on my system. Both are on the same harddrive.

They don't interfere with each other.

I have posted the contents of the ' fstab' folder.

Originally it was ' root ' , ' boot ' and ' tmp ' parttions. There were no swap partition. The problem is I don't know very much about those minute issues.

OK, hda11 is currently being used for /tmp

so first of all unmount it
the system will then use continue to use /tmp, but it will be a folder on hda9 rather than its own separate partition. Then remove this line:
from /etc/fstab. Then use fdisk to change hda11 Id
press m to see a summary of commands, then you will see that you need to press t to change a partiton's id, then enter the partition number - 11 in your case, then enter the number for a Linux Swap partition which is 82; then you will be returned to the 'main screen' and m will list the commands again, you need 'w' to write the partition table and exit.

Once that is done
to finish making the swap space and turn it on. Then add this line to the top of /etc/fstab
So that the swap will allways be turned on at boot time

Do all of this in runlevel 3, or 1 to minimise the chance of something using /tmp whilst you unmount it