Please apply this on your own risk. Long version: https://www.digitalocean.com/community/tutorials/how-to-configure-virtual-memory-swap-file-on-a-vps Create a swap disk: cd /var touch swap.img chmod 600 swap.img Resize the file: Change the size according to your needs 1024 = 1 GB dd if=/dev/zero of=/var/swap.img bs=1024k count=1024 Convert file to swap area: mkswap /var/swap.img Enable the swap area: swapon /var/swap.img