NAME

       systemd-journald.service, systemd-journald.socket, systemd-journald-dev-log.socket,
       systemd-journald-audit.socket, systemd-journald@.service, systemd-journald@.socket,
       systemd-journald-varlink@.socket, systemd-journald - Journal service

SYNOPSIS

       systemd-journald.service

       systemd-journald.socket

       systemd-journald-dev-log.socket

       systemd-journald-audit.socket

       systemd-journald@.service

       systemd-journald@.socket

       systemd-journald-varlink@.socket

       /lib/systemd/systemd-journald

DESCRIPTION

       systemd-journald is a system service that collects and stores logging data. It creates and
       maintains structured, indexed journals based on logging information that is received from
       a variety of sources:

       •   Kernel log messages, via kmsg

       •   Simple system log messages, via the libc syslog(3) call

       •   Structured system log messages via the native Journal API, see sd_journal_print(3) and
           Native Journal Protocol[1]

       •   Standard output and standard error of service units. For further details see below.

       •   Audit records, originating from the kernel audit subsystem

       The daemon will implicitly collect numerous metadata fields for each log messages in a
       secure and unfakeable way. See systemd.journal-fields(7) for more information about the
       collected metadata.

       Log data collected by the journal is primarily text-based but can also include binary data
       where necessary. Individual fields making up a log record stored in the journal may be up
       to 2^64-1 bytes in size.

       The journal service stores log data either persistently below /var/log/journal or in a
       volatile way below /run/log/journal/ (in the latter case it is lost at reboot). By
       default, log data is stored persistently if /var/log/journal/ exists during boot, with an
       implicit fallback to volatile storage otherwise. Use Storage= in journald.conf(5) to
       configure where log data is placed, independently of the existence of /var/log/journal/.

       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".

       On systems where /var/log/journal/ does not exist yet but where persistent logging is
       desired (and the default journald.conf is used), it is sufficient to create the directory,
       and ensure it has the correct access modes and ownership:

           mkdir -p /var/log/journal
           systemd-tmpfiles --create --prefix /var/log/journal

       See journald.conf(5) for information about the configuration of this service.

STREAM LOGGING

       The systemd service manager invokes all service processes with standard output and
       standard error connected to the journal by default. This behaviour may be altered via the
       StandardOutput=/StandardError= unit file settings, see systemd.exec(5) for details. The
       journal converts the log byte stream received this way into individual log records,
       splitting the stream at newline ("\n", ASCII 10) and NUL bytes.

       If systemd-journald.service is stopped, the stream connections associated with all
       services are terminated. Further writes to those streams by the service will result in
       EPIPE errors. In order to react gracefully in this case it is recommended that programs
       logging to standard output/error ignore such errors. If the SIGPIPE UNIX signal handler is
       not blocked or turned off, such write attempts will also result in such process signals
       being generated, see signal(7). To mitigate this issue, systemd service manager explicitly
       turns off the SIGPIPE signal for all invoked processes by default (this may be changed for
       each unit individually via the IgnoreSIGPIPE= option, see systemd.exec(5) for details).
       After the standard output/standard error streams have been terminated they may not be
       recovered until the services they are associated with are restarted. Note that during
       normal operation, systemd-journald.service stores copies of the file descriptors for those
       streams in the service manager. If systemd-journald.service is restarted using systemctl
       restart or equivalent operation instead of a pair of separate systemctl stop and systemctl
       start commands (or equivalent operations), these stream connections are not terminated and
       survive the restart. It is thus safe to restart systemd-journald.service, but stopping it
       is not recommended.

       Note that the log record metadata for records transferred via such standard output/error
       streams reflect the metadata of the peer the stream was originally created for. If the
       stream connection is passed on to other processes (such as further child processes forked
       off the main service process), the log records will not reflect their metadata, but will
       continue to describe the original process. This is different from the other logging
       transports listed above, which are inherently record based and where the metadata is
       always associated with the individual record.

       In addition to the implicit standard output/error logging of services, stream logging is
       also available via the systemd-cat(1) command line tool.

       Currently, the number of parallel log streams systemd-journald will accept is limited to
       4096. When this limit is reached further log streams may be established but will receive
       EPIPE right from the beginning.

JOURNAL NAMESPACES

       Journal 'namespaces' are both a mechanism for logically isolating the log stream of
       projects consisting of one or more services from the rest of the system and a mechanism
       for improving performance. Multiple journal namespaces may exist simultaneously, each
       defining its own, independent log stream managed by its own instance of systemd-journald.
       Namespaces are independent of each other, both in the data store and in the IPC interface.
       By default only a single 'default' namespace exists, managed by systemd-journald.service
       (and its associated socket units). Additional namespaces are created by starting an
       instance of the systemd-journald@.service service template. The instance name is the
       namespace identifier, which is a short string used for referencing the journal namespace.
       Service units may be assigned to a specific journal namespace through the LogNamespace=
       unit file setting, see systemd.exec(5) for details. The --namespace= switch of
       journalctl(1) may be used to view the log stream of a specific namespace. If the switch is
       not used the log stream of the default namespace is shown, i.e. log data from other
       namespaces is not visible.

       Services associated with a specific log namespace may log via syslog, the native logging
       protocol of the journal and via stdout/stderr; the logging from all three transports is
       associated with the namespace.

       By default only the default namespace will collect kernel and audit log messages.

       The systemd-journald instance of the default namespace is configured through
       /etc/systemd/journald.conf (see below), while the other instances are configured through
       /etc/systemd/journald@NAMESPACE.conf. The journal log data for the default namespace is
       placed in /var/log/journal/MACHINE_ID (see below) while the data for the other namespaces
       is located in /var/log/journal/MACHINE_ID.NAMESPACE.

SIGNALS

       SIGUSR1
           Request that journal data from /run/ is flushed to /var/ in order to make it
           persistent (if this is enabled). This must be used after /var/ is mounted, as
           otherwise log data from /run/ is never flushed to /var/ regardless of the
           configuration. Use the journalctl --flush command to request flushing of the journal
           files, and wait for the operation to complete. See journalctl(1) for details.

       SIGUSR2
           Request immediate rotation of the journal files. Use the journalctl --rotate command
           to request journal file rotation, and wait for the operation to complete.

       SIGRTMIN+1
           Request that all unwritten log data is written to disk. Use the journalctl --sync
           command to trigger journal synchronization, and wait for the operation to complete.

KERNEL COMMAND LINE

       A few configuration parameters from journald.conf may be overridden on the kernel command
       line:

       systemd.journald.forward_to_syslog=, systemd.journald.forward_to_kmsg=,
       systemd.journald.forward_to_console=, systemd.journald.forward_to_wall=
           Enables/disables forwarding of collected log messages to syslog, the kernel log
           buffer, the system console or wall.

           See journald.conf(5) for information about these settings.

       Note that these kernel command line options are only honoured by the default namespace,
       see above.

ACCESS CONTROL

       Journal files are, by default, owned and readable by the "systemd-journal" system group
       but are not writable. Adding a user to this group thus enables them to read the journal
       files.

       By default, each user, with a UID outside the range of system users, dynamic service
       users, and the nobody user, will get their own set of journal files in /var/log/journal/.
       See Users, Groups, UIDs and GIDs on systemd systems[2] for more details about UID ranges.
       These journal files will not be owned by the user, however, in order to avoid that the
       user can write to them directly. Instead, file system ACLs are used to ensure the user
       gets read access only.

       Additional users and groups may be granted access to journal files via file system access
       control lists (ACL). Distributions and administrators may choose to grant read access to
       all members of the "wheel" and "adm" system groups with a command such as the following:

           # setfacl -Rnm g:wheel:rx,d:g:wheel:rx,g:adm:rx,d:g:adm:rx /var/log/journal/

       Note that this command will update the ACLs both for existing journal files and for future
       journal files created in the /var/log/journal/ directory.

FILES

       /etc/systemd/journald.conf
           Configure systemd-journald behavior. See journald.conf(5).

       /run/log/journal/machine-id/*.journal, /run/log/journal/machine-id/*.journal~,
       /var/log/journal/machine-id/*.journal, /var/log/journal/machine-id/*.journal~
           systemd-journald writes entries to files in /run/log/journal/machine-id/ or
           /var/log/journal/machine-id/ with the ".journal" suffix. If the daemon is stopped
           uncleanly, or if the files are found to be corrupted, they are renamed using the
           ".journal~" suffix, and systemd-journald starts writing to a new file.  /run/ is used
           when /var/log/journal is not available, or when Storage=volatile is set in the
           journald.conf(5) configuration file.

           When systemd-journald ceases writing to a journal file, it will be renamed to
           "original-name@suffix.journal" (or "original-name@suffix.journal~"). Such files are
           "archived" and will not be written to any more.

           In general, it is safe to read or copy any journal file (active or archived).
           journalctl(1) and the functions in the sd-journal(3) library should be able to read
           all entries that have been fully written.

           systemd-journald will automatically remove the oldest archived journal files to limit
           disk use. See SystemMaxUse= and related settings in journald.conf(5).

       /dev/kmsg, /dev/log, /run/systemd/journal/dev-log, /run/systemd/journal/socket,
       /run/systemd/journal/stdout
           Sockets and other file node paths that systemd-journald will listen on and are visible
           in the file system. In addition to these, systemd-journald can listen for audit events
           using netlink(7).

       If journal namespacing is used these paths are slightly altered to include a namespace
       identifier, see above.

SEE ALSO

       systemd(1), journalctl(1), journald.conf(5), systemd.journal-fields(7), sd-journal(3),
       systemd-coredump(8), setfacl(1), sd_journal_print(3), pydoc systemd.journal

NOTES

        1. Native Journal Protocol
           https://systemd.io/JOURNAL_NATIVE_PROTOCOL

        2. Users, Groups, UIDs and GIDs on systemd systems
           https://systemd.io/UIDS-GIDS