Arch Linux

equalizer876

Member

Registered: 2018-09-11

Posts: 78

[SOLVED] Swap file

I've got a question about https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Swap#Swap_file
In a VM I accidently typed "dd if=/dev/vda1 of=/swapfile bs=1M count=512 status=progress"
instead of
"dd if=/dev/zero of=/swapfile bs=1M count=512 status=progress"

Terminal warning was like "warning wiping old ext4 signature".

The OS still seems to run. Swap space shows on system monitor too. Should I reinstall my system to avoid potential problems?

Last edited by equalizer876 (2020-12-30 22:26:09)

V1del

Forum Moderator

Registered: 2012-10-16

Posts: 21,731

Re: [SOLVED] Swap file

If you didn't mistype the of=/swapfile I doubt that much of harm was done, did you get that warning during the dd or the swapon command? If swapon managed to work I'd say it's alright if not, maybe just recreate the swapfile properly.  Otherwise you just wrote the first 500MB of your harddisk as a swapfile which shouldn't be inherently problematic

equalizer876

Member

Registered: 2018-09-11

Posts: 78

Re: [SOLVED] Swap file

I got the warning after the swapon command. To be secure I recreated the swapfile again. Thanks.