Working with systemd journals
Journaling

Systemd inaugurated a new journal system, journald. We look at how to view and interpret the new system logs.
If you are an ordinary user, you may barely notice systemd. However, if you administer a system, even if only your own, the time is overdue to learn a thing or two about systemd. A useful place to start is with its journals, partly because systemd handles journals in a very organized way, and partly because reading logs is essential to troubleshooting.
Systemd's journals are a replacement for the traditional syslogs. The traditional syslog daemon is gone from a systemd system and replaced by journald, although you might not have noticed because, for now, many distributions are forwarding systemd journals through traditional utilities in a default form similar to those with which you are familiar. You might not even have seen any new boot messages, because, at least initially, many distributions are shipping with the systemd journal not enabled.
If the journal is running, you will have a /var/log/journal
file. If you do not, create the file and run the following command to set the proper permissions:
[...]
Buy this article as PDF
(incl. VAT)
Buy Linux Magazine
Subscribe to our Linux Newsletters
Find Linux and Open Source Jobs
Subscribe to our ADMIN Newsletters
Support Our Work
Linux Magazine content is made possible with support from readers like you. Please consider contributing when you’ve found an article to be beneficial.

News
-
TuxCare Announces Support for AlmaLinux 9.2
Thanks to TuxCare, AlmaLinux 9.2 (and soon version 9.6) now enjoys years of ongoing patching and compliance.
-
Go-Based Botnet Attacking IoT Devices
Using an SSH credential brute-force attack, the Go-based PumaBot is exploiting IoT devices everywhere.
-
Plasma 6.5 Promises Better Memory Optimization
With the stable Plasma 6.4 on the horizon, KDE has a few new tricks up its sleeve for Plasma 6.5.
-
KaOS 2025.05 Officially Qt5 Free
If you're a fan of independent Linux distributions, the team behind KaOS is proud to announce the latest iteration that includes kernel 6.14 and KDE's Plasma 6.3.5.
-
Linux Kernel 6.15 Now Available
The latest Linux kernel is now available with several new features/improvements and the usual bug fixes.
-
Microsoft Makes Surprising WSL Announcement
In a move that might surprise some users, Microsoft has made Windows Subsystem for Linux open source.
-
Red Hat Releases RHEL 10 Early
Red Hat quietly rolled out the official release of RHEL 10.0 a bit early.
-
openSUSE Joins End of 10
openSUSE has decided to not only join the End of 10 movement but it also will no longer support the Deepin Desktop Environment.
-
New Version of Flatpak Released
Flatpak 1.16.1 is now available as the latest, stable version with various improvements.
-
IBM Announces Powerhouse Linux Server
IBM has unleashed a seriously powerful Linux server with the LinuxONE Emperor 5.