X-Files Wiki

Now the journal log can accumulate quite a lot of disk space over time if you don't clean it up every once in a while.

To check the amount of space used run the following command.

journalctl --disk-usage

Start with rotating the logs. This will mark the currently active journal logs as archive and create fresh new logs.

journalctl --rotate

Next you will have a few options on how to proceed.

1: Clear journal log older than x days

journalctl --vacuum-time=2d

2: Restrict logs to a certain size.

journalctl --vacuum-size=100M

3: Restrict number of log files.

journalctl --vacuum-files=5

Automatically clearing old log files i.e let the system do it. The configuration file that handles this is located here.

/etc/systemd/journald.conf

You will need to uncomment the settings you wish to tweak. What you are looking for are these settings.

Example:

[Journal]
#Storage=auto
#Compress=yes
#Seal=yes
#SplitMode=uid
#SyncIntervalSec=5m
#RateLimitIntervalSec=30s
#RateLimitBurst=1000
SystemMaxUse=250M
#SystemKeepFree=
#SystemMaxFileSize=
#SystemMaxFiles=100