rails assets pipeline "Cannot allocate memory - nodejs"

It's simple to spend the three minutes (maybe two if you type fast) to add a swap file to your server.

If you're running Ubuntu (not sure how well this works for other Linux flavors), just follow this tutorial from DigitalOcean:

https://www.digitalocean.com/community/articles/how-to-add-swap-on-ubuntu-12-04

Voila!

Based on the tutorial link provided by Kyle Carlson

Check swap space

sudo swapon -s

An empty list will confirm that you have no swap files enabled:

Filename Type Size Used Priority

Create and Enable the Swap File (swapfile)

sudo dd if=/dev/zero of=/swapfile bs=1024 count=256k

Create a linux swap area:

sudo mkswap /swapfile

output:

Setting up swapspace version 1, size = 262140 KiB no label, UUID=103c4545-5fc5-47f3-a8b3-dfbdb64fd7eb

Activate the swapfile:

sudo swapon /swapfile

check if you can see the swap summary.

swapon -sFilename                Type        Size    Used    Priority/swapfile                               file        262140  0   -1

Done!

To make the swap file permenant

sudo nano /etc/fstab

Paste in the following line:

/swapfile none swap sw 0 0

Swappiness in the file should be set to 10. Skipping this step may cause both poor performance, whereas setting it to 10 will cause swap to act as an emergency buffer, preventing out-of-memory crashes.

echo 10 | sudo tee /proc/sys/vm/swappinessecho vm.swappiness = 10 | sudo tee -a /etc/sysctl.conf

set up the correct permissions on the swap file to not readable by the public:

sudo chown root:root /swapfile sudo chmod 0600 /swapfile

Based on @tohi's answer, I created a script which you can paste into a terminal.

# Turn it (off) on# sudo swapoff -asudo swapon -s# Create a swap file# 512k --> Swapfile of 512 MBsudo dd if=/dev/zero of=/swapfile bs=1024 count=512k# Use the swap filesudo mkswap /swapfilesudo swapon /swapfile# make sure the swap is present after reboot:sudo echo " /swapfile       none    swap    sw      0       0 " >> /etc/fstab# Set the swappiness (performance - aware)echo 10 | sudo tee /proc/sys/vm/swappinessecho vm.swappiness = 10 | sudo tee -a /etc/sysctl.conf           # Change the permission to non-world-readablesudo chown root:root /swapfile sudo chmod 0600 /swapfile

Update: If you need to resize the /swapfile at a later point check out this answer: https://askubuntu.com/a/763717/508371