5
submitted 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) by gomp@lemmy.ml to c/nixos@lemmy.ml

I'm playing around with nixos in a few VMs and at some point I realized I must have lost the swap configuration in one of my refactorings.

To my surprise, however, the VMs do use the swap partitions I had set up.

There is no mention on "swap" in my nix configuration (or in fstab) and no .swap units in /etc/systemd/system; I do however have a swap partition labelled "swap".

Turns out there is a systemd unit (albeit not a corresponding file) that sets up swap:

[root@vm1:~]# free -hw
               total        used        free      shared     buffers       cache   available
Mem:           2.8Gi       664Mi       955Mi       4.0Mi       3.0Mi       1.3Gi       2.0Gi
Swap:          3.7Gi          0B       3.7Gi

[root@vm1:~]# systemctl list-dependencies swap.target 
swap.target
● └─dev-disk-by\x2ddiskseq-1\x2dpart3.swap

I'm wondering where the unit comes from? Can I rely on this and never configure swap ever again?

top 2 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[-] Klaymore@sh.itjust.works 3 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

Apparently they still get auto-mounted even if they aren't in your config. You can check the wiki.

[-] PortugalSpaceMoon@infosec.pub 2 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

It's difficult to say without seeing your nixos config. Are you importing any nixos modules? Would you be able to share your configs?

Also see https://nixos.wiki/wiki/Swap In paricular:

If you are using GPT partitioning tables, systemd-gpt-auto-generator(8) will still mount your swap partition automatically.

this post was submitted on 28 Sep 2023
5 points (100.0% liked)

nixos

1231 readers
1 users here now

All about NixOS - https://nixos.org/

founded 4 years ago