> > Well wouldn't it make sense to have "swapoff -a" affect ALL swap areas?
>
> I don't think so. swapon -a means "swap on all swap areas mentioned in
> /etc/fstab", so swapoff -a should mean "stop swapping on the areas
> mentioned in /etc/fstab".
That was my first concern, too. However, umount -a already unmounts all
the filesystems listed in /etc/mtab (not fstab), so I don't see a problem
with swapoff -a doing something similar. Also, /proc/mounts exists,
although when it was first introduced there were similar discutions on
whether it duplicates /etc/mtab and takes care of a userspace problem or
not.
> If you add swap areas manually, why can't you
> remove them manually? Why would you even *want* swapoff -a to remove a
> swap area swapon -a hasn't added?
Even if you don't want that, there are certain situations when knowing
which partitions/files are being used for swapping is really useful.
Ionut
--
It is better to keep your mouth shut and be thought a fool,
than to open it and remove all doubt.