Filesystem of swap space

3

What is the name of the filesystem used for swap space?

user49706

Posted 2010-12-08T04:01:45.413

Reputation:

Which operating system? Windows is different from Linux, etc. – Cody Gray – 2010-12-08T05:58:34.327

Answers

3

The problem is, for Unix and Linux, swap is not a filesystem because it does not contain files, file metadata, and/or a file directory hierarchy. What swap is, is a memory mapped area of disk. That memory mapped area of disk might be a partition, or a file, but within it are not files, but pages.

For Linux, a swap partition on a PC formatted hard disk has a partition ID of 82. Once mkswap is run on it, the area inside is identified by having the text "SWAP_SPACE" or "SWAPSPACE2" in the last 10 bytes of the first page (usually 512 bytes).

If a file is used, the internal structure is the same, but the file should be created without any holes (unfragmented). The dd command is used for this.

kmarsh

Posted 2010-12-08T04:01:45.413

Reputation: 4 632

0

You can read some notes about the makeup of the swap file here:

http://linux.die.net/man/8/mkswap

Dan Grossman

Posted 2010-12-08T04:01:45.413

Reputation: 176

0

Whatever the OS, the swap space isn't a file system as it doesn't contain files in the first place but pages. It isn't either structured hierarchically, if at all, like most filesystems are.

jlliagre

Posted 2010-12-08T04:01:45.413

Reputation: 12 469

-1

The name of file system is swap.Have a nice day....

Jayakrishnan T

Posted 2010-12-08T04:01:45.413

Reputation: 11