linux,

Fix 'fallocate failed: Operation not supported'

Mar 02, 2022 · 1 min read · Post a comment

While creating a swap on your Linux machine, executing sudo fallocate -l 1G /swap-file-name may throw fallocate failed: Operation not supported. Here I’m going to show you a quick fix for it.

Prerequisites

  • Linux bash environment
  • sudo privileges

Solution

Step 1. One of the reasons for the error is that fallocate is not installed on your Linux machine. But anyway we can bypass it using another command:

sudo dd if=/dev/zero of=/swap-file-name bs=1024 count=1048576

Step 2. Add the correct permissions.

sudo chmod 600 /swap-file-name

Step 3. Make the file as Linux swap area.

sudo mkswap /swap-file-name

Step 4. Enable it.

sudo swapon /swap-file-name

Step 5. To make the swap permanent open the /etc/fstab and add the following line:

/swap-file-name swap swap defaults 0 0

Step 6. To check if the swap is active, run:

sudo swapon --show

or:

sudo free -h

Conclusion

Feel free to leave a comment below and if you find this tutorial useful, follow our official channel on Telegram.