On Fri, 24 Jan 2020 12:59:41 +0000, Jan Panteltje wrote:

> OK, thank everybody for the replies.
> So it is a swap file... did not even know that.
>
> But IMO this is a basic problem in Linux.
> An ever growing swap space usage is a killer in the long run,
> be it in a file or on a disk.
>
I don't recall how big the swap file is when its initially created,
mainly because I use swap partitions on all my systems except the RPi.
You set the swap partition size when you create it and its size doesn't
change unless you replace it with a different sized swap partition.

However, I think you'll find that the swap file is expanded if the kernel
runs out of space in it but it is never automatically reduced in size,
because the kernel can't know whether the workload that caused the
increase was a one-off or just the first instance of the system's normal
workload.


--
Martin    | martin at
Gregorie  | gregorie dot org

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