5.7. Adding Virtual Memory

As explained in the introduction, virtual memory is used when the processes running on your system need to use more memory than is physically installed. Because not all processes run at the same time, those that are inactive can be safely swapped out to virtual memory and then swapped back in again when they need to run. Because disks are far slower than RAM, however, the constant swapping in and out (known as thrashing) will slow the system to a crawl if processes on your system use up too much memory.

Files in an existing local filesystem as well as entire partitions can be used for virtual memory. Using a partition is almost always faster, but can be inflexible if you have no free partitions on your hard disk. A system can have more than one virtual memory file or partition, so if you are running out of virtual memory it is easy to add more.

The steps for adding additional virtual memory are:

1.
On the main page of the Disk and Network Filesystems module, select Virtual Memory from the drop-down box of filesystem types, and click the Add mount button. A form will appear for entering the source and other options.

2.
If you want the virtual memory to be added at boot time, select Save and mount at boot for the Save Mount option. Otherwise, select Don't save if this is to be only a temporary addition.

3.
For the Mount now? option, select Mount if you want the virtual memory to be added immediately, or Don't mount if you just want it to be recorded for future addition at boot time.

4.
If you want to add an entire partition as virtual memory, select Disk for the Swap File option and select the partition from the list. Otherwise, select Swap File and enter the path that you want to use as virtual memory. If you enter a path to a file that already exists, that file will be overwritten when the virtual memory is added.

5.
Click the Create button at the bottom of the page. If you are adding a swap file which does not exist yet, you will be prompted to enter a size for the file, and Webmin will create it for you. If all goes well, the browser will return to the list of filesystems on the main page.

Once the new virtual memory has been added, your system's available memory should increase by the size of the partition or swap file. Use the memory display of the Running Processes module (explained in Chapter 11) to see how much real and virtual memory is available.

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