It is not possible to create a swap file within a VPS when using our OpenVZ VPS.
However, at Farbyte we create a virtual swap file for each VPS, which actually uses real RAM. It is half the size of your VPS RAM allocation (e.g. 512MB RAM = 256MB, 1GB RAM = 512MB swap, etc.).
Allowing swap file creation within a public VPS hosting service is a poor practice allowed by some other VPS hosting services.
The reason being that many people try to create large swap files instead of getting extra RAM, thus their VPS thrashes the disk sub-system causing poor performance for not just the VPS in question, but also affecting all other VPS on the server.
This is one of the reasons OpenVZ offers great performance in comparison to some other technologies, as it just doesn't allow swap file creation within the VPS.
If you think you need more swap, you should really be considering upgrading your VPS RAM.
This can be done by logging into the client area at farbyte.uk
