Setup SWAP Space on Amazon EC2 Instance Using A Partition

Calculate the swap space size

Amount of System RAM	Recommended swap space
2 GB of RAM or less	2x the amount of RAM but never less than 32 MB
More than 2 GB of RAM but less than 32 GB	4 GB + (RAM - 2 GB)
32 GB of RAM or more	1x the amount of RAM

Create a partition on hard disk as swap space

Login in to the instance using SSH

List the available volumes:

sudo fdisk -l

Select a device to partition from the list, let’s use /dev/xvda.

sudo fdisk /dev/xvda

Create a new partition

-> n

Select a partition type, let’s use primary

-> p

Assign the partition number, let’s use partition 2:

-> 2

Accept the default of “First sector” by pressing Enter.

Enter the size of the swap file, let’s use 4GB of swap file

-> +4G

Save and exit

-> w

Setup the swap area

Use partprobe command to inform the OS of partition table change:

partprobe

Setup a linux swap area using the swap partition, let’s use /dev/xvda1.

mkswap /dev/xvda1

Add the partition as swap space

sudo swapon /dev/xvda2

Show the current swap space

sudo swapon -s

Update fstab to make the swap allocation permanent on reboot

Update the /etc/fstab, add new entry to make the swap partition available on reboot

sudo nano /etc/fstab

Add the new entry

/dev/xvda1 none swap sw 0 0

source: https://aws.amazon.com/premiumsupport/knowledge-center/ec2-memory-partition-hard-drive/