In case anyone else needs this, here is my Chef snippet to create a swap file:

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script 'create swapfile' do
  interpreter 'bash'
  not_if { File.exists?('/var/swapfile') }
  code <<-eof
    dd if=/dev/zero of=/var/swapfile bs=1M count=2048 &&
    chmod 600 /var/swapfile &&
 

    mkswap /var/swapfile
  eof
end
mount '/dev/null' do  # swap file entry for fstab
  action :enable  # cannot mount; only add to fstab
  device '/var/swapfile'
  fstype 'swap'
end
script 'activate swap' do
  interpreter 'bash'
  code 'swapon -a'
end

Normally I would use “none” as the mount point for a swap file, but Chef

Depending on how fast your disk is (I’m looking at you, Amazon!), dd can take a while, so I recommend you put this at the end of your recipe (or recipe list).

P.S. In case you were wondering where to put the swap file: Apparently /var/swapfile is as good a place as any.

P.P.S. No proselytizing in the comments about how swap partitions are faster please, unless you show me a benchmark. ;-)