How to enable or disable multiple swap space in Linux

In this tutorial we will learn how to disable and enable the swap space. In this post we will see different scenario.The practical has been performed in Red Hat based Linux OS and Debian based OS.

Scenraio 1: How to disable and enable all swap space.

For eg. in your system if you have single swap space or multiple swap space follow the given below steps to enable /disable the swap space.

To Disable swap:

swapoff -a

To Enable swap

swapon -a

Scenario 2: If you have multiple swap space but want to enable or disable only particular swap area.

Use the below given syntax for particular swap space to enable or disable it

To enable (swapon), to disable(swapoff)

swapoff 
swapon 
  
swapoff 
swapon 

swapoff        
swapon       

See below example of my system

Note: The command swapon -s with show how many swap space are there and they are created in which device or file

root@ubuntu:/# swapon -s
Filename				Type		Size	Used	Priority
/swapfile-additional                    file		1048572	0	-1
/dev/mapper/ubuntu-swap_1               partition	1044476	0	-2
root@ubuntu:/# 
root@ubuntu:/# swapoff /dev/mapper/ubuntu-swap_1
root@ubuntu:/# 
root@ubuntu:/# swapon -s
Filename				Type		Size	Used	Priority
/swapfile-additional                    file		1048572	0	-1
root@ubuntu:/# 
root@ubuntu:/# swapoff /swapfile-additional
root@ubuntu:/# 
root@ubuntu:/# swapon -s
Filename				Type		Size	Used	Priority
root@ubuntu:/# 
root@ubuntu:/#

Disable Multiple but selective Swap Area: You can select more than one swap device or file, in my case I have now 3 swap space in system, I will disable 2 swap space similarly you can select many swap space as you want.

root@ubuntu:/# swapon -s
Filename				Type		Size	Used	Priority
/dev/mapper/ubuntu-swap_1               partition	1044476	0	-1
/swapfile-additional                    file		1048572	0	-2
/swapfile-2                             file		524284	0	-3
root@ubuntu:/# 
root@ubuntu:/# 
root@ubuntu:/# swapoff /swapfile-2 /dev/mapper/ubuntu-swap_1
root@ubuntu:/# 
root@ubuntu:/# swapon -s
Filename				Type		Size	Used	Priority
/swapfile-additional                    file		1048572	0	-1
root@ubuntu:/# 
root@ubuntu:/# 

Enable Multiple but selective Swap Area:

root@ubuntu:/# swapon -s
Filename				Type		Size	Used	Priority
/swapfile-additional                    file		1048572	0	-1
root@ubuntu:/# 
root@ubuntu:/# swapon /swapfile-2 /dev/mapper/ubuntu-swap_1
root@ubuntu:/# 
root@ubuntu:/# swapon -s
Filename				Type		Size	Used	Priority
/swapfile-2                             file		524284	0	-2
/swapfile-additional                    file		1048572	0	-1
/dev/mapper/ubuntu-swap_1               partition	1044476	0	-3
root@ubuntu:/# 

If you want to know How to create swap file in Linux without reboot,Click Here