In case that the available memory is not sufficient, i.e. for compiling
the X.org server, and no hard-drive can be attached to the system it
is
possible to swap over NFS, although it is not quite straightforward.
Usually one would create a blank file,
mkswap it and simply do a
swapon swapfile.
Doing this on a filesystem mounted over NFS, i.e. the
ELDK root filesystem, fails however.
With one level of indirection we can trick the kernel into doing it anyway. First we
create a filesystem image (ext2 will do) on the NFS filesystem and mount it with the aid of the
loopback device. Then we create a blank swapfile
inside of this filesystem and turn
on swapping:
bash-2.05b# mount
/dev/nfs on / type nfs (rw)
none on /proc type proc (rw)
bash-2.05b# cd /tmp
bash-2.05b# dd if=/dev/zero of=ext2.img bs=1M count=66
66+0 records in
66+0 records out
bash-2.05b# mkfs.ext2 ext2.img
mke2fs 1.27 (8-Mar-2002)
ext2.img is not a block special device.
Proceed anyway? (y,n) y
Filesystem label=
OS type: Linux
Block size=1024 (log=0)
Fragment size=1024 (log=0)
16920 inodes, 67584 blocks
3379 blocks (5.00%) reserved for the super user
First data block=1
9 block groups
8192 blocks per group, 8192 fragments per group
1880 inodes per group
Superblock backups stored on blocks:
8193, 24577, 40961, 57345
Writing inode tables: done
Writing superblocks and filesystem accounting information: done
This filesystem will be automatically checked every 26 mounts or
180 days, whichever comes first. Use tune2fs -c or -i to override.
bash-2.05b# for i in `seq 0 9` ; do mknod /dev/loop$i b 7 $i ; done
bash-2.05b# mkdir /mnt2
bash-2.05b# mount -o loop ext2.img /mnt2
bash-2.05b# cd /mnt2
bash-2.05b# dd if=/dev/zero of=swapfile bs=1M count=62
62+0 records in
62+0 records out
bash-2.05b# mkswap swapfile
Setting up swapspace version 1, size = 65007 kB
bash-2.05b# free
total used free shared buffers cached
Mem: 14556 14260 296 0 772 9116
-/+ buffers/cache: 4372 10184
Swap: 0 0 0
bash-2.05b# swapon swapfile
bash-2.05b# free
total used free shared buffers cached
Mem: 14556 14172 384 0 784 9020
-/+ buffers/cache: 4368 10188
Swap: 63480 0 63480
bash-2.05b#
Because the
ELDK right now has no device nodes for the loopback driver we create them
along the way. It goes without saying that the
loop driver has to be included in
the kernel configuration. You can check this by looking for a driver for major number
7 (block devices) in
/proc/devices.
