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Gooserider
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Joined: 30 Dec 2005
Posts: 165
Location: Universe, Milky Way Galaxy, Solar System, Earth, North America, USA, MA, North Billerica
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 Posted: Sun Mar 30, 2008 8:16 am Post subject: Using thumb drive for swap problem (3/08 GMN Tips) (SOLVED!) |
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Tried to find an existing thread on this, no luck - also feel free to move to a better area if there is one...
I am having a couple of problems trying to implement the suggestion to use a USB thumb drive for a swap drive as suggested in the March Gentoo Monthly Newsleter's "Tips & Tricks" section.
Per the tip, I created a type 82 swap partition using the entire space on a 2gb thumb drive, and added a line to /etc/fstab, but I can't get the swap to work.
I can't get the swap to turn on with "swapon -a" - I get the error message
| Code: | # swapon -a
swapon: /dev/sda1: Invalid argument |
I am not using /dev/sda1 in my fstab file, instead I'm using the long name I got from
| Code: | ls -l /dev/disk/by-id/usb-*-part1
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 10 Mar 30 02:22 /dev/disk/by-id/usb-USB_2.0_USB_Flash_Drive_bc71a222e9b2c2-0:0-part1 -> ../../sda1 |
The relevant part of my /etc/fstab is:
| Code: | # commented out to avoid conflicts w/ swap drive (didn't help)?
# /dev/sda1 /mnt/flash auto noauto,users,rw 0 0
# swapdrive created out of 2gb USB thumb drive to give faster swap speed -
# commented line per March 08 Gentoo Monthly Newsletter, /dev/loop did not work,
# so removed encryption.
# /dev/disk/by-id/usb-USB_2.0_USB_Flash_Drive_bc71a222e9b2c2-0:0-part1 none swap sw,loop=/dev/loop7,encryption=AES128 0 0
/dev/disk/by-id/usb-USB_2.0_USB_Flash_Drive_bc71a222e9b2c2-0:0-part1 none swap sw 0 0 |
This mentions in passing the other problem I'm having, the loop device didn't work for encrypting the drive - I don't appear to have any /dev/loop devices, so I was initially getting errors about that. I'm fairly sure that might just be a problem where I haven't created the loops, but I was planning to not worry about that for now - the system is not publically accessible, and I don't use encryption on any of the rest of it, so I didn't see failing to encrypt the thumb drive as a significant added risk.
As you can see, I did have a mount for /dev/sda1 in fstab for a flash RAM from my camera that I occasionally connect to get pictures off, I commented this out on the off chance that it was part of my problem, but it didn't change anything. ls -l for /dev/sd* gives me
| Code: | # ls -l /dev/sd*
brw-rw---- 1 root disk 8, 0 Mar 30 02:22 /dev/sda
brw-rw---- 1 root disk 8, 1 Mar 30 03:00 /dev/sda1
brw-rw---- 1 root disk 8, 16 Mar 30 02:22 /dev/sdb
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I'm guessing that this thumb drive is somehow getting linked to /dev/sda1, and that this is what is getting the swap utility upset - is there some way to break that link? Also what do I need to do in order to make the camera card still work properly when I do stick it in the machine?
Thanks,
Gooserider
_________________
Box 1: P2 Celeron 400, 320mb RAM, 80GB HD, Cirrus Logic 4614/22/24 sound card, ATI 3D RAGE PRO AGP 1X/2X (sound & video onboard)
Box 2: AMD Athlon 2500+ 512mb RAM, 80GB HD, Gigabyte K7 Triton (Nvidia) mobo, GeForce2 video |
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Gooserider
Apprentice
Joined: 30 Dec 2005
Posts: 165
Location: Universe, Milky Way Galaxy, Solar System, Earth, North America, USA, MA, North Billerica
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| Posted: Tue Apr 01, 2008 8:10 pm Post subject: |
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Figured out what I missed, and that fixed it - the GMN article mentioned using FDISK to create a partition, but failed to say anything about formatting it - turns out that was the problem, once I did a mkswap on it, I was able to turn it on no problem....
Get the drive ID again:
| Code: | # ls -l /dev/disk/by-id/usb-*-part1
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 10 Mar 30 02:22 /dev/disk/by-id/usb-USB_2.0_USB_Flash_Drive_bc71a222e9b2c2-0:0-part1 -> ../../sda1
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Format the swap drive:
| Code: | # mkswap /dev/disk/by-id/usb-USB_2.0_USB_Flash_Drive_bc71a222e9b2c2-0:0-part1
Setting up swapspace version 1, size = 2021617 kB
no label, UUID=847be986-a36a-4c0f-a4bb-1e09eb65e232
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Turn on the swap drives, and check status:
| Code: | # swapon -a
# swapon -s
Filename Type Size Used Priority
/dev/hda2 partition 979956 264036 -1
/dev/sda1 partition 1974232 0 -2
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Notice that the existing hard-drive based swap is still there, and will be used first  so: Turn OFF the old hard drive based swap, and recheck:
| Code: | # swapoff /dev/hda2
# swapon -s
Filename Type Size Used Priority
/dev/sda1 partition 1974232 0 -2
Everything now looks pretty good, other than not having encryption, but as I mentioned in my first post, I'm not convinced that this is a big issue since I'm the only one using the machine and it is pretty limited access - I figure that if I have a gov't agent or other criminal break into my house, having an unencrypted thumb drive is the least of my problems...
Gooserider
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_________________
Box 1: P2 Celeron 400, 320mb RAM, 80GB HD, Cirrus Logic 4614/22/24 sound card, ATI 3D RAGE PRO AGP 1X/2X (sound & video onboard)
Box 2: AMD Athlon 2500+ 512mb RAM, 80GB HD, Gigabyte K7 Triton (Nvidia) mobo, GeForce2 video |
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