Parse the systemd journal with QJournalctl

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© Lead Image © varijanta, 123RF.com

© Lead Image © varijanta, 123RF.com

Article from Issue 254/2022
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QJournalctl is a convenient GUI tool that will help you track down log data in the systemd journal.

After more than 10 years of development, systemd has undeniably arrived. The systemd system and service manager still does not find undivided approval in the open source community, but the discussions centered on what was once a very controversial topic have calmed down. No matter what you think of systemd, it has improved a few things.

One of the benefits of systemd is its ability to log information, warnings, and errors. In systemd, the component responsible for logging is known as the journal. Systemd-journald provides much more data than conventional log files /var/log/messages or /var/log/syslog that have been used for decades. In some cases, the journal even includes metadata that you can use to refine your journal searches.

Systemd's journaling results in a high volume of data that would be difficult to handle with conventional text files. Because of this high volume, systemd stores the data in binary files that can be read with the journalctl command. Various programs and services, and even the kernel, write their log entries to the journal. The systemd journal combines all these logs and offers various options for finding the information you need in a targeted way.

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