I checked the server and issued various command to investigated. but from teh output of swap -s and swap -l,

i received the following


swap -l

swapfile dev swaplo blocks free
/dev/vx/dsk/swapvol 197,7 16 4194800 4127696
/dev/vx/dsk/swap2 197,8 16 12582896 12517072
/dev/vx/dsk/appdg/swap4 197,115021 16 8388592 8323856


swap -s

total: 2202456k bytes allocated + 13441848k reserved = 15644304k used, 25064k available


i mean, how do i know what the threshold is for the swap space. and also, i tried to create a swap file in the /tmp directory which had quite a lot of space but the mkfile command returned an error saying "not enough space left on device".

from the top command, the top command says theres about 12G of swap space free.

what can i do??

first of all.... what OS are you using??
based on the in and outputs it looks like solaris... so what can you do:
if you make a file in /tmp it makes no sense because in solaris /tmp is a tmpfs so you make the swap in swap like a loop..
choose a partition where you've got enough space
root@sun # df -k
now create a file with the needed size:
root@sun # mkfile 500m swapfile.1
now add this file to the swap
root@sun # swap -a /bla/swapfile.1
have a look how it works:
root@sun # swap -l
swapfile dev swaplo blocks free
/dev/dsk/c1t0d0s1 118,1 16 4194800 4194800
/opt/swapfile - 16 1023984 1023984

This addition is temporary until the next reboot. swap -d <file> unconfigures the additional swap space

now let's add it permanently:
insert this line into your /etc/vfstab
/bla/swapfile.1 - - swap - no -

that's all.....
greetings Preßy

We really need to know exactly was OS you're using. And the total physical memory.

If you're using SunOS, do a "dk -k /tmp". You will probably find that it is mounted on swap. You can't create a swap area on swap like that.

top is confused because it does not understand your OS's concept of reserved. Think like this:
free swap = available swap + reserved swap
and I think that the numbers will make sense for you.

If that available swap hits zero, you will be in trouble. And it looks rather close.

The operating system am using is SunOS 5.8

After the server did its scheduled daily reboot, swap space was back to normal and there weren't any more alerts.

nonetheless, i'm glad you guys explained to me not to create swap in a swap (tmp)