SWAP Files

[nanair01]

What is the difference between VM Swap file and guest OS Swap file?

And is there any ESX Swap file?

Could someone give a brief idea about these and also about their location?

[weinstein5]

The guest O/S swap file is used by the operating system when it needs memory above and beyond what is assigned to guest - for Linux it is swap space and windows it is pagfile.sys - the VM Swapfile is used by the vmkernel when it does not have enough physical memory to satisfy the memory demands of the VM. This file is created when the VM is powered on and is equal to memory assigned to the vm minus any reservation -

For the service console on an ESX there is swap space because in essence the service console is a RHEL virtual machine -

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[marvinms]

I'll contribute my teaspoon worth.

The OS swap file used by the VM to page to disk if needed.

The ESX swap file is a function of Memory / Resorce management by VMWare like the memory ballooning function to manage resources allocated to the VM. It works inconjuction with VMTools.