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JOURNALD.CONF(5) journald.conf JOURNALD.CONF(5)
NAME
journald.conf, journald.conf.d, journald@.conf - Journal service configuration files
SYNOPSIS
/etc/systemd/journald.conf
/etc/systemd/journald.conf.d/*.conf
/run/systemd/journald.conf.d/*.conf
/usr/lib/systemd/journald.conf.d/*.conf
/etc/systemd/journald AT NAMESPACE.conf
/etc/systemd/journald AT NAMESPACE.d/*.conf
/run/systemd/journald AT NAMESPACE.d/*.conf
/usr/lib/systemd/journald AT NAMESPACE.d/*.conf
DESCRIPTION
These files configure various parameters of the systemd journal service, systemd-
journald.service(8). See systemd.syntax(7) for a general description of the syntax.
The systemd-journald instance managing the default namespace is configured by
/etc/systemd/journald.conf and associated drop-ins. Instances managing other namespaces
read /etc/systemd/journald AT NAMESPACE.conf and associated drop-ins with the namespace
identifier filled in. This allows each namespace to carry a distinct configuration. See
systemd-journald.service(8) for details about journal namespaces.
CONFIGURATION DIRECTORIES AND PRECEDENCE
The default configuration is set during compilation, so configuration is only needed when
it is necessary to deviate from those defaults. Initially, the main configuration file in
/etc/systemd/ contains commented out entries showing the defaults as a guide to the
administrator. Local overrides can be created by editing this file or by creating
drop-ins, as described below. Using drop-ins for local configuration is recommended over
modifications to the main configuration file.
In addition to the "main" configuration file, drop-in configuration snippets are read from
/usr/lib/systemd/*.conf.d/, /usr/local/lib/systemd/*.conf.d/, and /etc/systemd/*.conf.d/.
Those drop-ins have higher precedence and override the main configuration file. Files in
the *.conf.d/ configuration subdirectories are sorted by their filename in lexicographic
order, regardless of in which of the subdirectories they reside. When multiple files
specify the same option, for options which accept just a single value, the entry in the
file sorted last takes precedence, and for options which accept a list of values, entries
are collected as they occur in the sorted files.
When packages need to customize the configuration, they can install drop-ins under /usr/.
Files in /etc/ are reserved for the local administrator, who may use this logic to
override the configuration files installed by vendor packages. Drop-ins have to be used to
override package drop-ins, since the main configuration file has lower precedence. It is
recommended to prefix all filenames in those subdirectories with a two-digit number and a
dash, to simplify the ordering of the files.
To disable a configuration file supplied by the vendor, the recommended way is to place a
symlink to /dev/null in the configuration directory in /etc/, with the same filename as
the vendor configuration file.
OPTIONS
All options are configured in the [Journal] section:
Storage=
Controls where to store journal data. One of "volatile", "persistent", "auto" and
"none". If "volatile", journal log data will be stored only in memory, i.e. below the
/run/log/journal hierarchy (which is created if needed). If "persistent", data will be
stored preferably on disk, i.e. below the /var/log/journal hierarchy (which is created
if needed), with a fallback to /run/log/journal (which is created if needed), during
early boot and if the disk is not writable. "auto" behaves like "persistent" if the
/var/log/journal directory exists, and "volatile" otherwise (the existence of the
directory controls the storage mode). "none" turns off all storage, all log data
received will be dropped (but forwarding to other targets, such as the console, the
kernel log buffer, or a syslog socket will still work). Defaults to "auto" in the
default journal namespace, and "persistent" in all others.
Note that journald will initially use volatile storage, until a call to journalctl
--flush (or sending SIGUSR1 to journald) will cause it to switch to persistent logging
(under the conditions mentioned above). This is done automatically on boot via
"systemd-journal-flush.service".
Note that when this option is changed to "volatile", existing persistent data is not
removed. In the other direction, journalctl(1) with the --flush option may be used to
move volatile data to persistent storage.
Compress=
Can take a boolean value. If enabled (the default), data objects that shall be stored
in the journal and are larger than the default threshold of 512 bytes are compressed
before they are written to the file system. It can also be set to a number of bytes to
specify the compression threshold directly. Suffixes like K, M, and G can be used to
specify larger units.
Seal=
Takes a boolean value. If enabled (the default), and a sealing key is available (as
created by journalctl(1)'s --setup-keys command), Forward Secure Sealing (FSS) for all
persistent journal files is enabled. FSS is based on Seekable Sequential Key
Generators[1] by G. A. Marson and B. Poettering (doi:10.1007/978-3-642-40203-6_7) and
may be used to protect journal files from unnoticed alteration.
SplitMode=
Controls whether to split up journal files per user, either "uid" or "none". Split
journal files are primarily useful for access control: on UNIX/Linux access control is
managed per file, and the journal daemon will assign users read access to their
journal files. If "uid", all regular users (with UID outside the range of system
users, dynamic service users, and the nobody user) will each get their own journal
files, and system users will log to the system journal. See Users, Groups, UIDs and
GIDs on systemd systems[2] for more details about UID ranges. If "none", journal files
are not split up by user and all messages are instead stored in the single system
journal. In this mode unprivileged users generally do not have access to their own log
data. Note that splitting up journal files by user is only available for journals
stored persistently. If journals are stored on volatile storage (see Storage= above),
only a single journal file is used. Defaults to "uid".
RateLimitIntervalSec=, RateLimitBurst=
Configures the rate limiting that is applied to all messages generated on the system.
If, in the time interval defined by RateLimitIntervalSec=, more messages than
specified in RateLimitBurst= are logged by a service, all further messages within the
interval are dropped until the interval is over. A message about the number of dropped
messages is generated. This rate limiting is applied per-service, so that two services
which log do not interfere with each other's limits. Defaults to 10000 messages in
30s. The time specification for RateLimitIntervalSec= may be specified in the
following units: "s", "min", "h", "ms", "us". To turn off any kind of rate limiting,
set either value to 0.
Note that the effective rate limit is multiplied by a factor derived from the
available free disk space for the journal. Currently, this factor is calculated using
the base 2 logarithm.
Table 1. Example RateLimitBurst= rate modifications by the available disk space
+---------------------+------------------+
|Available Disk Space | Burst Multiplier |
+---------------------+------------------+
|<= 1MB | 1 |
+---------------------+------------------+
|<= 16MB | 2 |
+---------------------+------------------+
|<= 256MB | 3 |
+---------------------+------------------+
|<= 4GB | 4 |
+---------------------+------------------+
|<= 64GB | 5 |
+---------------------+------------------+
|<= 1TB | 6 |
+---------------------+------------------+
If a service provides rate limits for itself through LogRateLimitIntervalSec= and/or
LogRateLimitBurst= in systemd.exec(5), those values will override the settings
specified here.
SystemMaxUse=, SystemKeepFree=, SystemMaxFileSize=, SystemMaxFiles=, RuntimeMaxUse=,
RuntimeKeepFree=, RuntimeMaxFileSize=, RuntimeMaxFiles=
Enforce size limits on the journal files stored. The options prefixed with "System"
apply to the journal files when stored on a persistent file system, more specifically
/var/log/journal. The options prefixed with "Runtime" apply to the journal files when
stored on a volatile in-memory file system, more specifically /run/log/journal. The
former is used only when /var/ is mounted, writable, and the directory
/var/log/journal exists. Otherwise, only the latter applies. Note that this means that
during early boot and if the administrator disabled persistent logging, only the
latter options apply, while the former apply if persistent logging is enabled and the
system is fully booted up. journalctl and systemd-journald ignore all files with
names not ending with ".journal" or ".journal~", so only such files, located in the
appropriate directories, are taken into account when calculating current disk usage.
SystemMaxUse= and RuntimeMaxUse= control how much disk space the journal may use up at
most. SystemKeepFree= and RuntimeKeepFree= control how much disk space
systemd-journald shall leave free for other uses. systemd-journald will respect both
limits and use the smaller of the two values.
The first pair defaults to 10% and the second to 15% of the size of the respective
file system, but each value is capped to 4G. If the file system is nearly full and
either SystemKeepFree= or RuntimeKeepFree= are violated when systemd-journald is
started, the limit will be raised to the percentage that is actually free. This means
that if there was enough free space before and journal files were created, and
subsequently something else causes the file system to fill up, journald will stop
using more space, but it will not be removing existing files to reduce the footprint
again, either. Also note that only archived files are deleted to reduce the space
occupied by journal files. This means that, in effect, there might still be more space
used than SystemMaxUse= or RuntimeMaxUse= limit after a vacuuming operation is
complete.
SystemMaxFileSize= and RuntimeMaxFileSize= control how large individual journal files
may grow at most. This influences the granularity in which disk space is made
available through rotation, i.e. deletion of historic data. Defaults to one eighth of
the values configured with SystemMaxUse= and RuntimeMaxUse=, so that usually seven
rotated journal files are kept as history.
Specify values in bytes or use K, M, G, T, P, E as units for the specified sizes
(equal to 1024, 1024^2, ... bytes). Note that size limits are enforced synchronously
when journal files are extended, and no explicit rotation step triggered by time is
needed.
SystemMaxFiles= and RuntimeMaxFiles= control how many individual journal files to keep
at most. Note that only archived files are deleted to reduce the number of files until
this limit is reached; active files will stay around. This means that, in effect,
there might still be more journal files around in total than this limit after a
vacuuming operation is complete. This setting defaults to 100.
MaxFileSec=
The maximum time to store entries in a single journal file before rotating to the next
one. Normally, time-based rotation should not be required as size-based rotation with
options such as SystemMaxFileSize= should be sufficient to ensure that journal files
do not grow without bounds. However, to ensure that not too much data is lost at once
when old journal files are deleted, it might make sense to change this value from the
default of one month. Set to 0 to turn off this feature. This setting takes time
values which may be suffixed with the units "year", "month", "week", "day", "h" or "m"
to override the default time unit of seconds.
MaxRetentionSec=
The maximum time to store journal entries. This controls whether journal files
containing entries older than the specified time span are deleted. Normally,
time-based deletion of old journal files should not be required as size-based deletion
with options such as SystemMaxUse= should be sufficient to ensure that journal files
do not grow without bounds. However, to enforce data retention policies, it might make
sense to change this value from the default of 0 (which turns off this feature). This
setting also takes time values which may be suffixed with the units "year", "month",
"week", "day", "h" or " m" to override the default time unit of seconds.
SyncIntervalSec=
The timeout before synchronizing journal files to disk. After syncing, journal files
are placed in the OFFLINE state. Note that syncing is unconditionally done immediately
after a log message of priority CRIT, ALERT or EMERG has been logged. This setting
hence applies only to messages of the levels ERR, WARNING, NOTICE, INFO, DEBUG. The
default timeout is 5 minutes.
ForwardToSyslog=, ForwardToKMsg=, ForwardToConsole=, ForwardToWall=
Control whether log messages received by the journal daemon shall be forwarded to a
traditional syslog daemon, to the kernel log buffer (kmsg), to the system console, or
sent as wall messages to all logged-in users. These options take boolean arguments. If
forwarding to syslog is enabled but nothing reads messages from the socket, forwarding
to syslog has no effect. By default, only forwarding to syslog and wall is enabled.
These settings may be overridden at boot time with the kernel command line options
"systemd.journald.forward_to_syslog", "systemd.journald.forward_to_kmsg",
"systemd.journald.forward_to_console", and "systemd.journald.forward_to_wall". If the
option name is specified without "=" and the following argument, true is assumed.
Otherwise, the argument is parsed as a boolean.
When forwarding to the console, the TTY to log to can be changed with TTYPath=,
described below.
When forwarding to the kernel log buffer (kmsg), make sure to select a suitably large
size for the log buffer, for example by adding "log_buf_len=8M" to the kernel command
line. systemd will automatically disable kernel's rate-limiting applied to userspace
processes (equivalent to setting "printk.devkmsg=on").
MaxLevelStore=, MaxLevelSyslog=, MaxLevelKMsg=, MaxLevelConsole=, MaxLevelWall=
Controls the maximum log level of messages that are stored in the journal, forwarded
to syslog, kmsg, the console or wall (if that is enabled, see above). As argument,
takes one of "emerg", "alert", "crit", "err", "warning", "notice", "info", "debug", or
integer values in the range of 0-7 (corresponding to the same levels). Messages equal
or below the log level specified are stored/forwarded, messages above are dropped.
Defaults to "debug" for MaxLevelStore= and MaxLevelSyslog=, to ensure that the all
messages are stored in the journal and forwarded to syslog. Defaults to "notice" for
MaxLevelKMsg=, "info" for MaxLevelConsole=, and "emerg" for MaxLevelWall=. These
settings may be overridden at boot time with the kernel command line options
"systemd.journald.max_level_store=", "systemd.journald.max_level_syslog=",
"systemd.journald.max_level_kmsg=", "systemd.journald.max_level_console=",
"systemd.journald.max_level_wall=".
ReadKMsg=
Takes a boolean value. If enabled systemd-journal processes /dev/kmsg messages
generated by the kernel. In the default journal namespace this option is enabled by
default, it is disabled in all others.
Audit=
Takes a boolean value. If enabled systemd-journal will turn on kernel auditing on
start-up. If disabled it will turn it off. If unset it will neither enable nor disable
it, leaving the previous state unchanged. Note that this option does not control
whether systemd-journald collects generated audit records, it just controls whether it
tells the kernel to generate them. This means if another tool turns on auditing even
if systemd-journald left it off, it will still collect the generated messages.
Defaults to off.
TTYPath=
Change the console TTY to use if ForwardToConsole=yes is used. Defaults to
/dev/console.
LineMax=
The maximum line length to permit when converting stream logs into record logs. When a
systemd unit's standard output/error are connected to the journal via a stream socket,
the data read is split into individual log records at newline ("\n", ASCII 10) and NUL
characters. If no such delimiter is read for the specified number of bytes a hard log
record boundary is artificially inserted, breaking up overly long lines into multiple
log records. Selecting overly large values increases the possible memory usage of the
Journal daemon for each stream client, as in the worst case the journal daemon needs
to buffer the specified number of bytes in memory before it can flush a new log record
to disk. Also note that permitting overly large line maximum line lengths affects
compatibility with traditional log protocols as log records might not fit anymore into
a single AF_UNIX or AF_INET datagram. Takes a size in bytes. If the value is suffixed
with K, M, G or T, the specified size is parsed as Kilobytes, Megabytes, Gigabytes, or
Terabytes (with the base 1024), respectively. Defaults to 48K, which is relatively
large but still small enough so that log records likely fit into network datagrams
along with extra room for metadata. Note that values below 79 are not accepted and
will be bumped to 79.
FORWARDING TO TRADITIONAL SYSLOG DAEMONS
Journal events can be transferred to a different logging daemon in two different ways.
With the first method, messages are immediately forwarded to a socket
(/run/systemd/journal/syslog), where the traditional syslog daemon can read them. This
method is controlled by the ForwardToSyslog= option. With a second method, a syslog daemon
behaves like a normal journal client, and reads messages from the journal files, similarly
to journalctl(1). With this, messages do not have to be read immediately, which allows a
logging daemon which is only started late in boot to access all messages since the start
of the system. In addition, full structured meta-data is available to it. This method of
course is available only if the messages are stored in a journal file at all. So it will
not work if Storage=none is set. It should be noted that usually the second method is used
by syslog daemons, so the Storage= option, and not the ForwardToSyslog= option, is
relevant for them.
SEE ALSO
systemd(1), systemd-journald.service(8), journalctl(1), systemd.journal-fields(7),
systemd-system.conf(5)
NOTES
1. Seekable Sequential Key Generators
https://eprint.iacr.org/2013/397
2. Users, Groups, UIDs and GIDs on systemd systems
https://systemd.io/UIDS-GIDS
systemd 249 JOURNALD.CONF(5)
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