Limiting disk usage by journald

[Suvayu Ali]

Hi,

On one of my systems, journald is using over 1 gig of disk space.  So I
tried to limit it in /etc/systemd/journald.conf like this:

[Journal]
  #SystemMaxUse=1.0G
  SystemMaxFileSize=1.0G

However it seems to be ignored.  After a

# systemctl restart systemd-journald.service

I see the following:

Dec 31 18:45:01 <hostname> systemd-journal[13137]: Permanent journal is using 1.4G (max 4.0G, leaving 4.0G of free 78.5G, current limit 4.0G).
  Dec 31 18:45:01 <hostname> systemd-journal[13137]: Journal started

What should I do to limit the journal size?

Thanks for any ideas,

[Heinz Diehl]

On 31.12.2013, Suvayu Ali wrote:
> [Journal]
>   #SystemMaxUse=1.0G
>   SystemMaxFileSize=1.0G

I guess you'll have to activate "SystemMaxUse=1.0G" to see the effect you're
expecting..

[Suvayu Ali]

On Tue, Dec 31, 2013 at 08:56:33PM +0100, Heinz Diehl wrote:
> On 31.12.2013, Suvayu Ali wrote:
> > [Journal]
> >   #SystemMaxUse=1.0G
> >   SystemMaxFileSize=1.0G
>
> I guess you'll have to activate "SystemMaxUse=1.0G" to see the effect you're
> expecting..

I have tried that too.  In fact I tried with both set to 1.0G; no luck.

[Rahul Sundaram]

Hi

On Tue, Dec 31, 2013 at 3:42 PM, Suvayu Ali  wrote:
> I have tried that too.  In fact I tried with both set to 1.0G; no luck.

What is output of journalctl --disk-usage

Rahul

[Rahul Sundaram]

Hi

On Tue, Dec 31, 2013 at 3:42 PM, Suvayu Ali  wrote:
> I have tried that too.  In fact I tried with both set to 1.0G; no luck.

One more thing:  can you try with 1G instead of 1.0G?

Rahul

[Rahul Sundaram]

Hi

On Tue, Dec 31, 2013 at 3:55 PM, Rahul Sundaram  wrote:
> One more thing:  can you try with 1G instead of 1.0G?

Following to my own post:

1G as opposed to 1.0G works.  I have filed

https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1047568

Rahul

[Suvayu Ali]

On Tue, Dec 31, 2013 at 04:04:03PM -0500, Rahul Sundaram wrote:
> Hi
>
> On Tue, Dec 31, 2013 at 3:55 PM, Rahul Sundaram  wrote:
> > One more thing:  can you try with 1G instead of 1.0G?
>
> Following to my own post:
>
> 1G as opposed to 1.0G works.  I have filed
>
> https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1047568

Thanks!  Another interesting bit: if I set both to 1G, journald uses 2G
(I think it just adds the two).  I would expect it to pick the least
among the two.

Although not sure why SystemMaxFileSize is being ignored.

[Chris Murphy]

On Dec 31, 2013, at 2:35 PM, Suvayu Ali  wrote:
> > https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1047568
>
> Thanks!  Another interesting bit: if I set both to 1G, journald uses 2G
> (I think it just adds the two).  I would expect it to pick the least
> among the two.
>
> Although not sure why SystemMaxFileSize is being ignored.

Sounds like a separate bug. SystemMaxUse= to me means, do not use more than this, in total, for journals. SystemMaxFileSize= to me means, journal files themselves should not grow larger than this.

Interestingly on my system, systemd-journald, with defaults, has created several 16MB journal files, nothing larger. Since they can become corrupt, and systemd-journald detects this and will then create and use a new journal file, it seems like a smaller log size is reasonable. 1G might be a lot of log info to lose if it's irreparably corrupt for whatever reason.

Chris Murphy