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Date:      Wed, 27 Nov 2002 13:35:44 -0600
From:      Mark Nipper <nipsy@tamu.edu>
To:        freebsd-stable@FreeBSD.ORG
Subject:   question about swap files and crash dumps
Message-ID:  <20021127193544.GA4399@ops.tamu.edu>

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	As I have misconfigured a machine with an inappropriate
amount of dedicated swap space, I'm having to add a swap file.
The only reason I'm doing this even is because I've been
experiencing bizarre reboots (about once a week) with both
RELENG_4_6 (up to 4.6.2-p5) and RELENG_4_7.  So I'm going to
enable crash dumps to see if I can start figuring out why!

	However, as I said before, I've misconfigured the machine
and so I do not have enough dedicated swap space to hold a crash
dump of my main memory.  I have 768MB of physical RAM and only
512MB of swap.  Don't ask...  :)

	The question is, if I add a swap file using the vnode
driver, will the kernel know to make use of the space or does the
crash dump handler only use dedicated swap partitions?  Also,
given my current VM configuration, how much swap space should I
allocate for the new swap file I'm creating, given the kernel's
desire to somehow balance swap usage?  If necessary, I can just
dump my dedicated swap partition all together, although this
probably isn't a good idea.  And lastly, is the swap file any
slower than a dedicated swap partition?

-- 
Mark Nipper                                                e-contacts:
Computing and Information Services                      nipsy@tamu.edu
Texas A&M University                    http://arrakis.tamu.edu/nipsy/
College Station, TX 77843-3142           AIM: texasnipsy ICQ: 66971617
(979)575-3193                                        Yahoo: texasnipsy

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