swapoff Command

Purpose

Deactivates one or more paging spaces.

Syntax

swapoff DeviceName { DeviceName ...}

Description

The swapoff command deactivates one or more paging spaces. The paging spaces are specified by DeviceName.

Note: There is a paging space limit of 64 GB per device.

To be deactivated:

The paging space must have been previously activated through the swapon command.
There must exist enough space in the remaining paging spaces. The remaining paging device should have enough space to accommodate the current system-wide paging space usage and the npswarn value.

Note: This command is not supported when executed within a workload partition.

Exit Status

Item	Description
Value	Description
0	Deactivation is successful, the paging state is set to the INACTIVE state.
1	The following message displays: `swapoff: Cannot deactivate paging space DeviceName`
2	There is not enough space in the remaining paging spaces, the deactivation is not done and the following message displays: `"swapoff: Cannot deactivate paging space DeviceName : There is not enough space in the file system."`
3	An I/O error occurred on user pages of a paging space, the following message displays: `swapoff: Deactivation of paging space DeviceName suspended: I/O errors encountered on user backing pages.` The recommended action is: Check the error log. Deactivate the paging space for the next reboot using the chps command. Reboot the system.
4	An I/O error occurred on system pages of a paging space, the following message displays: `swapoff: Deactivation of paging space DeviceName suspended: I/O errors encountered on system backing pages. The system may crash.` The recommended action is: Check the error log. Deactivate the paging space for the next reboot using the chps command. Reboot the system.

Security

Attention RBAC users and Trusted AIX users: This command can perform privileged operations. Only privileged users can run privileged operations. For more information about authorizations and privileges, see Privileged Command Database in AIX® Version 7.1 Security. For a list of privileges and the authorizations associated with this command, see the lssecattr command or the getcmdattr subcommand.