Add swap memory with ansible
I based my take on the great Ashley's answer (please upvote it!) and added the following extra features:
- global flag to manage the swap or not,
- allow changing the swap size,
- allow disabling swap,
...plus these technical improvements:
- full idempotency (only
ok&skippingwhen nothing is changed, otherwise somechanged), - use
ddinstead offallocatefor compatibility with XFS fs (see this answer for more info),
Limitations:
- changes the existing swapfile works correctly only if you provide its path as
swap_file_path.
Tested on Centos 7.7 with Ansible 2.9 and Rocky 8 with Ansible 4.8.0.
Requires using privilege escalation as many of the commands need to run as root. (The easiest way to do it is to add --become to ansible-playbook arguments or to set the appropriate value in your ansible.cfg).
Parameters:
swap_configure: true # or false
swap_enable: true # or false
swap_file_path: /swapfile
swap_file_size_mb: 4096
swappiness: 1
Code:
- name: Configure swap
when: swap_configure | bool
block:
- name: Check if swap file exists
stat:
path: "{{swap_file_path}}"
get_checksum: false
get_md5: false
register: swap_file_check
changed_when: false
- name: Set variable for existing swap file size
set_fact:
swap_file_existing_size_mb: "{{ (swap_file_check.stat.size / 1024 / 1024) | int }}"
when: swap_file_check.stat.exists
- name: Check if swap is on
shell: swapon --show | grep {{swap_file_path}}
register: swap_is_enabled
changed_when: false
failed_when: false
- name: Disable swap
command: swapoff {{swap_file_path}}
register: swap_disabled
when: >
swap_file_check.stat.exists
and 'rc' in swap_is_enabled and swap_is_enabled.rc == 0
and (not swap_enable or (swap_enable and swap_file_existing_size_mb != swap_file_size_mb))
- name: Delete the swap file
file:
path: "{{swap_file_path}}"
state: absent
when: not swap_enable
- name: Remove swap entry from fstab
mount:
name: none
src: "{{swap_file_path}}"
fstype: swap
opts: sw
passno: '0'
dump: '0'
state: present
when: not swap_enable
- name: Configure swap
when: swap_enable | bool
block:
- name: Create or change the size of swap file
command: dd if=/dev/zero of={{swap_file_path}} count={{swap_file_size_mb}} bs=1MiB
register: swap_file_created
when: >
not swap_file_check.stat.exists
or swap_file_existing_size_mb != swap_file_size_mb
- name: Change swap file permissions
file:
path: "{{swap_file_path}}"
mode: 0600
- name: Check if swap is formatted
shell: file {{swap_file_path}} | grep 'swap file'
register: swap_file_is_formatted
changed_when: false
failed_when: false
- name: Format swap file if it's not formatted
command: mkswap {{swap_file_path}}
when: >
('rc' in swap_file_is_formatted and swap_file_is_formatted.rc > 0)
or swap_file_created.changed
- name: Add swap entry to fstab
mount:
name: none
src: "{{swap_file_path}}"
fstype: swap
opts: sw
passno: '0'
dump: '0'
state: present
- name: Turn on swap
shell: swapon -a
# if swap was disabled from the start
# or has been disabled to change its params
when: >
('rc' in swap_is_enabled and swap_is_enabled.rc != 0)
or swap_disabled.changed
- name: Configure swappiness
sysctl:
name: vm.swappiness
value: "{{ swappiness|string }}"
state: present
I'm not able to reply to Greg Dubicki answer so I add my 2 cents here:
I think adding casting to int when doing calculation on swap_file_size_mb * 1024 * 1024 to transform it into swap_file_size_mb | int * 1024 * 1024 will make the code a bit smarter in case you want to use a fact to extract the final swap size based on the amount of RAM installed like:
swap_file_size_mb: "{{ ansible_memory_mb['real']['total'] * 2 }}"
else it will always resize the swap file even if the size it's the same.
This is my current solution:
- name: Create swap file
command: dd if=/dev/zero of={{ swap_file_path }} bs=1024 count={{ swap_file_size_mb }}k
creates="{{ swap_file_path }}"
tags:
- swap.file.create
- name: Change swap file permissions
file: path="{{ swap_file_path }}"
owner=root
group=root
mode=0600
tags:
- swap.file.permissions
- name: "Check swap file type"
command: file {{ swap_file_path }}
register: swapfile
tags:
- swap.file.mkswap
- name: Make swap file
command: "sudo mkswap {{ swap_file_path }}"
when: swapfile.stdout.find('swap file') == -1
tags:
- swap.file.mkswap
- name: Write swap entry in fstab
mount: name=none
src={{ swap_file_path }}
fstype=swap
opts=sw
passno=0
dump=0
state=present
tags:
- swap.fstab
- name: Mount swap
command: "swapon {{ swap_file_path }}"
when: ansible_swaptotal_mb < 1
tags:
- swap.file.swapon
I tried the answer above but "Check swap file type" always came back as changed and therefore isn't idempotent which is encouraged as a best practice when writing Ansible tasks.
The role below has been tested on Ubuntu 14.04 Trusty and doesn't require gather_facts to be enabled.
- name: Set swap_file variable
set_fact:
swap_file: "{{swap_file_path}}"
tags:
- swap.set.file.path
- name: Check if swap file exists
stat:
path: "{{swap_file}}"
register: swap_file_check
tags:
- swap.file.check
- name: Create swap file
command: fallocate -l {{swap_file_size}} {{swap_file}}
when: not swap_file_check.stat.exists
tags:
- swap.file.create
- name: Change swap file permissions
file: path="{{swap_file}}"
owner=root
group=root
mode=0600
tags:
- swap.file.permissions
- name: Format swap file
sudo: yes
command: "mkswap {{swap_file}}"
when: not swap_file_check.stat.exists
tags:
- swap.file.mkswap
- name: Write swap entry in fstab
mount: name=none
src={{swap_file}}
fstype=swap
opts=sw
passno=0
dump=0
state=present
tags:
- swap.fstab
- name: Turn on swap
sudo: yes
command: swapon -a
when: not swap_file_check.stat.exists
tags:
- swap.turn.on
- name: Set swappiness
sudo: yes
sysctl:
name: vm.swappiness
value: "{{swappiness}}"
tags:
- swap.set.swappiness
As of Ansible 2.9, sudo declarations should be become:
- name: Set swap_file variable
set_fact:
swap_file: "{{swap_file_path}}"
tags:
- swap.set.file.path
- name: Check if swap file exists
stat:
path: "{{swap_file}}"
register: swap_file_check
tags:
- swap.file.check
- name: Create swap file
command: fallocate -l {{swap_file_size}} {{swap_file}}
when: not swap_file_check.stat.exists
tags:
- swap.file.create
- name: Change swap file permissions
file: path="{{swap_file}}"
owner=root
group=root
mode=0600
tags:
- swap.file.permissions
- name: Format swap file
become: yes
command: "mkswap {{swap_file}}"
when: not swap_file_check.stat.exists
tags:
- swap.file.mkswap
- name: Write swap entry in fstab
mount: name=none
src={{swap_file}}
fstype=swap
opts=sw
passno=0
dump=0
state=present
tags:
- swap.fstab
- name: Turn on swap
become: yes
command: swapon -a
when: not swap_file_check.stat.exists
tags:
- swap.turn.on
- name: Set swappiness
become: yes
sysctl:
name: vm.swappiness
value: "{{swappiness}}"
tags:
- swap.set.swappiness
Vars required:
swap_file_path: /swapfile
# Use any of the following suffixes
# c=1
# w=2
# b=512
# kB=1000
# K=1024
# MB=1000*1000
# M=1024*1024
# xM=M
# GB=1000*1000*1000
# G=1024*1024*1024
swap_file_size: 4G
swappiness: 1