Swap memory is full in linux What happens here is that when the RAM is exhausted, your Linux system uses part of the hard disk memory and allocates it to the running application. Follow our guide for efficient memory management. Simple steps, no reboot required. There is nothing to worry about, just ignore it. Why is the system predominantly using the swap if there is ~55 GB of empty memory? The swap file is on nvme drive but memory is still fa Aug 4, 2015 · 12 We have a linux machine, in which the swap partition gets filled to the limit from time to time. Virtual memory and swap space allows a large process to run even if the process is only partially resident. Learn about swap space and its benefits! To be consistent with the Linux usage of the word, we too will refer to it as swapping. This process may take a while, use gnome-system-monitor to monitor and verify the progress. Sep 8, 2019 · Learn how to clear swap in Linux without losing any important data. Swap acts as a breather to your system when the RAM is exhausted. I am running centos 5. memory pressure is not the only thing that uses swap. Apr 24, 2024 · Swap space in Linux is used when the amount of physical memory (Random Access Memory (RAM)) is full. In this article, you will learn what swap memory is, how it works, and how much swap memory you need. Swap space also enables hibernation and safeguards critical processes by temporarily offloading data. Swap space (also called paging space or swap file) plays a key role in this memory management strategy. 05, This can happen if at some time in the past you needed more memory than you have physical RAM in the machine. The second possibility is you might run out of memory, resulting in wierdness and crashes. Jun 20, 2020 · What will happen if swap memory is full in Linux? If your disks arn’t fast enough to keep up, then your system might end up thrashing, and you’d experience slowdowns as data is swapped in and out of memory. To use swap space run the below command. My Questions: Swap space in Linux is used when the amount of physical memory (RAM) is full. How to Set Use the swap space to provide temporary storage for inactive processes and data, and prevent out-of-memory errors when physical memory is full. Let’s see why swap space is useful during normal system operation, even Mar 6, 2019 · 4 I've a AWS ec2 instance running Ubuntu 16. The real problem here is that you have rather small RAM for modern use, and you also have quite small swap space. Apr 26, 2025 · Linux systems use both RAM and swap space to manage memory. Over time, however, certain parts of the memory like cache, buffers, and swap space can build up and slow things down. Nov 12, 2023 · Optimize your Linux system by learning how to clear RAM, cache, buffer, and swap space. swap is full so that's why you have to stop some process, for killing process use kill -9 PID And then use sudo swapoff -a In my condition i stop my sidekiq worker and then reallocated the swap memory. g. By understanding the fundamental concepts, usage methods, common practices, and best practices, you can effectively clear swap memory when needed. Jul 19, 2021 · Between running an emulator, using the browser, and using vscode, my system memory has been getting decently close to maxed out. e. This moves all data from swap memory back into RAM. Lately I am getting reports that my swap is full , but there is a lot of free memory to use. Looking at Ubuntu's system manager, I noticed that my Swap frequently goes up to 100%, even though I still have some free ram. When a Linux system runs out of RAM, inactive pages are moved from the RAM to the swap space. May 16, 2015 · 10 While it is true that kernel uses swap even if there may be memory left, using more than two thirds of it may be an indicator that historically the server may have been running out of memory and that is why it started swapping. top - 10:33:43 up 133 days, 17:00, 1 user, load average: 0. This article looks at scenarios May 27, 2020 · What is Swap in Linux? Swap is a space on a disk that is used when the amount of physical RAM memory is full. Jan 25, 2018 · If an application needs more memory, but the entire RAM is already in use, the application will crash. Jul 25, 2025 · Is your Linux system slow? Learn how to safely clear RAM cache, buffer, and swap space to instantly free up memory. I would correlate swap usage with memory usage in the sar reports to deduce whether the system has enough ram. 04 with swappiness set to default 60. Jul 23, 2025 · Methods to Check Swap Space in Linux 1. RAM is the physical memory, while swap is a space on the hard drive used when RAM is full. . While Linux is generally good at managing memory, periodically clearing these areas - especially when you notice slowdowns or high memory usage - can help keep your system running smoothly. By default, Linux can start using swap even if RAM is not full. It acts as extra memory, allowing the system to keep running. Understanding how Linux handles memory and swap is crucial for system administrators, developers, and power users aiming to optimize system performance and avoid resource bottlenecks. Hard to tell without more details, but it can be perfectly ok that your program needs more memory at the end of each epoch (whatever that means) and that forces kernel to use swap Jul 23, 2025 · As you use your Linux system, it constantly manages memory to keep your system running smoothly. Note that using swap space can slow down system performance, so optimizing the use of physical memory Jun 11, 2021 · Excessive swap use is only worrying if the amount of swap is large, or if pages are being swapped because of memory pressure, and more importantly if the swap activity is important, i. 04 with 64 GB RAM and have a swap file configured for 8GB. During a nightly batch process which syncs the backup data from an EBS volume of this instance to a S3 bucket, the swap memory is almost 100% utilised but the main memory still has abundant space in the range of 10-15 GB available. Mar 21, 2023 · okay, my pc is Celeron 3865U with 4G ram and 512gb HDD, I put 2gb as swap in my pc but usually my swap memory fill up, I dont know how i resolve it I try change swappiness for 10, but nothing happened. However, sometimes removing swap altogether can sometimes work well, especially in systems with plenty of RAM dedicated to critical workloads. you would endup with fragmented memory and a situation where you have free space but you cant start something because it reserves to much memory. It helps your computer keep running smoothly when the main memory (RAM) is full. Linux uses it to extend the memory available to processes, storing infrequently used pages there. There are two principle reasons that the existence of swap space is desirable. without swap the kernel cant deal very good with unpaged. The usual course of action in case of a full swap is to execute a swapoff -a && swapon -a to completely clear the swap. Aug 30, 2023 · Swap memory, also known as swap space, is a section of a computer's hard disk or SSD that the operating system (OS) uses to store inactive data from Random Access Memory (RAM). As for your mysql process: this Sep 8, 2019 · Learn how to clear swap in Linux without losing any important data. Aug 22, 2021 · I'm on Ubuntu mate 21. someone else know resolve? Sep 11, 2025 · Modern operating systems use both physical memory (RAM) and virtual memory to manage processes efficiently. When later memory gets freed, data from swap is not automatically read back into RAM: this only happens when the data in swap is actually needed by some process. It is a dedicated area on the hard disk used by the operating system as an extension of physical RAM Swapping Note: Swap space enables the OS to handle memory more flexibly, supporting Apr 16, 2019 · First you need to understand how swap works - when programs demand more memory than is physically available, kernel will move memory occupied by idle programs to swap to clear up memory for currently active program. 118 It is normal for Linux systems to use some swap even if there is still RAM free. Nov 16, 2019 · The swap decreased because data was either read back into memory, as the process was used, or the process released the memory for some reason. And I have plenty of disk space. Aug 31, 2023 · Swap space in Linux is an extension of physical RAM, offering virtual memory that helps maintain system stability and performance. ] To clear the swap memory on your system, you simply need to cycle off the swap. The Linux kernel will move to swap memory pages that are very seldom used (e. swappiness=0 To turn swap back on: Feb 25, 2020 · [ For more information on swap space, see Managing swap in the modern Linux system. The swap algorithm can determine which memory pages have not been used for a long time (for example memory from a sleeping background process) and will swap it out to let the system use the memory page for other purposes. However, swap can slow performance, so optimize physical memory use first. Swap space can take the form of either a dedicated swap partition or a swap file. Swap space provides temporary storage for inactive processes and data when physical memory is full, helping prevent out‑of‑memory errors. May 28, 2024 · Explains how to check and find out Swap space (paging) activity, size, and usage on Linux using various command line and GUI tools. Nov 26, 2024 · Discover how swap memory enhances your Linux system's performance by optimizing system resources during memory shortages. This allows the OS to run even when RAM is full, preventing system slowdowns or crashes. Also learn why would you clear the swap manually. You can change this by adjusting the swappiness value. While swap space can help machines with a small amount of RAM, it should not be considered a replacement for more RAM. We usually configure swap space during the operating system installation. , the getty instances when you only use X11, and some other inactive daemon). sudo swapoff --all To set the new value to 0: sudo sysctl vm. The swap space acts as an extension to the physical memory and allows the system to continue running smoothly even when physical memory is exhausted. This would result in a bottleneck. This is because I use the netbook for a lot more that it was intended for and my programs frequently require more than 2GB of memory. You can think of it as an “emergency overflow” for memory. Swap memory usage is at 100%swap, vm. My laptop has crashed twice now before I started paying attention to memory usage. Jun 30, 2012 · On my netbook, which has only 2GB of RAM, I keep 4GB of swap. In Linux, memory is managed efficiently through a combination of physical memory (RAM), virtual memory, and swap space. It allows processes to continue running when RAM is fully used and prevents memory errors. It also means that you need to be sure you have the RAM to support this operation. In this article, we’ll explore how to clear RAM Memory Cache, Buffer, and Swap Space on Linux to improve system performance. First make sure you have enough memory available by viewing the resources tab of gnome-system-monitor, your free memory should be greater than your used swap. if vmstat shows pages being swapped in and out all the time. Your problem is not how Linux manages RAM. But, it can also be set afterward by using the mkswap and swapon commands. Using swapon Command The swapon command is used to turn on and use an area of your hard drive as extra memory. First, it expands the amount of memory a process may use. Since Linux behaves very poorly in out-of-memory situations, I prefer to have a large safety net. Aug 13, 2025 · Clearing swap memory in Linux is a useful technique for managing system resources, freeing up disk space, and potentially improving system performance. This extra memory area is called swap space. At that time some data will have been written to the swap space. swappiness , KBA , BC-OP-LNX , Linux , BC-CST-MM , Memory Management , Problem May 5, 2025 · Learn how to manage swap space on Linux for better system performance and memory usage. That sounds cool. Apr 11, 2025 · Swap is a special area on your storage device—commonly a partition or a file—that the Linux kernel uses as virtual memory when the system’s RAM is full. May 28, 2025 · Learn how to configure Linux Shared Memory shmmax and shmall, set up secure swap space, and optimize memory performance for demanding applications. 8 with cpanel. the linux kernel memory management in general uses swap to reorganise. If the system needs more memory resources and the RAM is full, inactive pages in memory are moved to the swap space. Jul 23, 2025 · Conclusion Clearing RAM memory cache, buffer, and swap space on Linux can help free up system resources, improve performance, and prevent memory bloat. Mar 26, 2025 · Linux Performance – Part 3: No Swap Space March 26, 2025 by Hayden James, in Blog Linux Previous articles covered traditional swap and alternative methods like ZRAM to improve Linux memory management and performance. There's still enough of RAM free, so there should be no risk of running out of memory. This is perfectly normal. Mar 18, 2024 · The swap space is located on disk, in the form of a partition or a file. j22dq 8mugub1 nt 7m2j1 ah ery rxsr kc76 m44tush w2dsz