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Amend "Journal has been rotated since unit was started..."

#linux #ubuntu

Summary

systemctl status xxx shows the message:

Warning: Journal has been rotated since unit was started. Log output is incomplete or unavailable.
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The cause

In my case, the disk usage of the log files for journald was maxed out.

  • du -sh /run/log/journal let you see the disk usage.

  • The default maximum usage is 10% of the disk size.

    • It depends on your situation, but if /run is in a different partition from the one for /, you must refer the disk size for /run instead.

Amendment

Step 1

Amend the file /etc/systemd/journald.conf.

  • SystemMaxUse for /var/log/journal.

    • My machine did not have the directory so I did not apply this setting.

  • RuntimeMaxUse for /run/log/journal.

/etc/systemd/journald.conf
==========
SystemMaxUse=100M
RuntimeMaxUse=100M
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Step 2

Shrink the disk usage by deleting old archived log files:

journalctl --vacuum-time=2weeks
# OR
journalctl --vacuum-size=20M
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Step 3

Restart journald.

I am actually not sure if it is OK to use systemctl restart as it may lose some logs, but I could not have found a better way (Restart instead?):

journalctl --rotate && \
systemctl restart systemd-journald
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Useful Commands 

journalctl --disk-usage
# OR
du -sh /run/log/journal
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journalctl --verify
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ls -l /run/log/journal/*
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systemctl status systemd-journald
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References

Top comments (1)

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talkinwalkdave profile image
Dave •

Extremely helpful, thank you!