zramctl – set up and control zram devices

Get info:

zramctl [options]

Reset zram:

zramctl -r zramdev…

Print name of first unused zram device:

zramctl -f

Set up a zram device:

zramctl [-f | zramdev] [-s size] [-t number] [-a algorithm]

zramctl is used to quickly set up zram device parameters, to reset zram devices, and to query the status of used zram devices.

If no option is given, all non-zero size zram devices are shown.

-a, –algorithm lzo|lz4|lz4hc|deflate|842

Set the compression algorithm to be used for compressing data in the zram device.

-f, –find

Find the first unused zram device. If a –size argument is present, then initialize the device.

-n, –noheadings

Do not print a header line in status output.

-o, –output list

Define the status output columns to be used. If no output arrangement is specified, then a default set is used. Use –help to get a list of all supported columns.

–raw Use the raw format for status output.

-r, –reset

Reset the options of the specified zram device(s). Zram device settings can be changed only after a reset.

-s, –size size

Create a zram device of the specified size. Zram devices are aligned to memory pages; when the requested size is not a multiple of the page size, it will be rounded up to the next multiple. When not otherwise speci‐

fied, the unit of the size parameter is bytes.

The size argument may be followed by the multiplicative suffixes KiB (=1024), MiB (=1024*1024), and so on for GiB, TiB, PiB, EiB, ZiB and YiB (the “iB” is optional, e.g., “K” has the same meaning as “KiB”) or the suf‐

fixes KB (=1000), MB (=1000*1000), and so on for GB, TB, PB, EB, ZB and YB.

-t, –streams number

Set the maximum number of compression streams that can be used for the device. The default is one stream.

-V, –version

Display version information and exit.

-h, –help

Display help text and exit.

zramctl returns 0 on success, nonzero on failure.

/dev/zram[0..N]

zram block devices

The following commands set up a zram device with a size of one gigabyte and use it as swap device.

# zramctl –find –size 1024M

/dev/zram0

# mkswap /dev/zram0

# swapon /dev/zram0

…

# swapoff /dev/zram0

# zramctl –reset /dev/zram0

Linux kernel documentation ⟨http://git.kernel.org/cgit/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git/tree/Documentation/blockdev/zram.txt⟩.