Add swap space

Disclaimer: The following commands document how to add a raw device as swap volume. Selecting the wrong raw device will lead to data corruption in file systems!

All commands have to be executed with root privileges

  • Create a separate AWS volume with the required space. This warrants that there are no contentions in regards of maximum IOs with other volumes and the solution is price neutral
  • I assume that the swap volume is /dev/xvdg, Format and add the volume to swap:
$ mkswap /dev/xvdg
$ swapon /dev/xvdg

Make it persistent through reboots by adding the following line to /etc/fstab

/dev/xvdg     swap     swap defaults