swappy - Create a Linux Swapfile Pretty Darn Quick (PDQ)

When spinning up cheap cloud VPS instances (like 512MB or 1GB RAM droplets), memory exhaustion is one of the most common issues you encounter. A single npm install, compile step, or Docker build can instantly trigger the Linux Out-Of-Memory (OOM) killer and terminate your process.

Setting up a temporary or persistent swapfile is the classic remedy, but manually typing out dd, chmod 0600, mkswap, and swapon every time you provision a machine is repetitive.

To automate this, I created swappy (GitHub repository), a fast command-line assistant designed to create and activate a Linux swapfile PDQ (Pretty Darn Quick).

What Does swappy Do?

Running swappy init automatically:

1. Allocates zero-filled swap blocks using dd with progress tracking.
2. Sets secure ownership and permissions (root:root with 0600 access mode).
3. Formats the file with mkswap.
4. Activates the swap space with swapon (optionally configuring swap priority).
5. Appends a cleanup entry to /root/deleteswaps.sh for convenient teardown when no longer needed.

Usage Examples

• Quick 1GB default swapfile:

  swappy init
  

  (Defaults to /swapfile of 1024MB at priority 1)

• Specify a custom path:

  swappy init /mnt/extra_swap
  

• Specify path and custom size (in MB):

  swappy init /swapfile 4096
  

• Specify path, size, and swap priority:

  swappy init /swapfile 4096 3
  

• List active swap partitions and files:

  swappy list
  

Quick Installation

Run the bootstrap installer directly:

curl -sL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/joshuacox/swappy/master/bootstrap | bash

Or clone the repository and install it to /usr/local/bin:

git clone https://github.com/joshuacox/swappy.git
cd swappy
sudo make install

Ansible deployment is also supported straight out of the box with the included playbook:

make play

Documentation & Links

• Interactive Documentation: https://joshuacox.github.io/swappy/
• GitHub Repository: https://github.com/joshuacox/swappy