UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers

I just finished installing Solaris 2.6 and several applications just to realize that I made a bonehead mistake during the install. When setting up the filesystems, I entered /tmp and no swap! Is it possible to permanantly declare the entire /tmp partition as swap? I am guessing an entry in the /etc/vfstab, but am not sure.
Thanks

No, you can't declare /tmp as swap space. If you do, the programs that need to write /tmp (mail, vi, elm, etc. etc. etc.) will fail because there is no writeable filesystem space in /tmp.

You can install easily delete the configuration that specifies /tmp as swapspace and create disk swap or other filesystem swap. That is no problem. Look in your fstab or whatever that is where the filesystems and swap space are specified and change the swap entry after making other swap space.

You can create a specific file as swap.

#mkfile 250m /usr/swapadd
#swap -a /usr/swapadd

add it to your /etc/vfstab to make it permanent:

/usr/swapadd - - swap - no -




HTH

here comes my question
if I have enough memory (let's say 2Gb), do I really need a swap?

No, you don't have to configure swap space. If you have plenty of memory and never need to swap, you don't need swap