Instructions for adding swap space on the fly for a Solaris system. Adding swap space via a swap file degrades system perfomance. However, this is a useful method for quickly adding swap space without interrupting production. It’s a good idea to place the swap file on a disk other than the system disk. This would reduce system disk load and improve performance.

Create swap file:

mkfile SIZEm /swap.file

Here SIZE is the amount of swap space you want to add in Mb. Swap space should normally be twice the sizie of physical RAM on systems with up to 8Gb RAM. If you have more than 8Gb, swap space should be between 110% and 150% of physical RAM.

Add swap file to system swap:

swap -a /swap.file

Create /etc/rc2.d/S99swap with “swap -a /swap.file” command in it or add to /etc/vfstab:

/swap.file      -       -     swap    -  no  -