[CentOS] why i can not put my swap files in /dev?

[Jerry McAllister]

On Tue, Jul 06, 2010 at 06:41:06PM +0800, Tang Jianwei wrote:

> I tried to create some swap files in /dev directory for my desktop.
> the dd and mkswap were ok. but when I try to swapon it, i get this:
> 
> # swapon /dev/myswap
> swapon: /dev/myswap: Invalid argument
> 
> but when I mv the file to some other directory like /mnt or /, the 
> swapon works.
> 
> could sb. tell me why?

/dev is not a real directory for data files.
You should actually make a separate partition for swap  
Otherwise, you can put it in some real file spaca such as in /usr
or where you left a lot of space.    That is often done to increase
available swap space when the originally created  swap  partition
is not large enough - add some from file space.

////jerry



> 
> -- 
> Tang Jianwei
> 
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