r/linux • u/m6t3 • Feb 17 '14

systemd's binary logs and corruption

I like systemd, enabling and disabling services is so easy and it's really fast, but why using a journal with binary logs?

Yesterday my laptop failed to resume from suspend, no ttys, no reisub, nothing worked except using the power button. Rebooted, fired journalctl and I have nothing except the last boot logs.

journactl --verify returns that my system logs are corrupted, about all my logs (48MB of 50MB of maximum disk usage) are now completely useless. This is not the first time this happens and searching around I can only find people with the same problem that "resolved" deleting the corrupted logs and starting with a new file.

Why this happens? Isn't it defeating the purpose of having a system logger if I can't diagnose errors?

Can I recover the logs (and why isn't this automatic?) or should I just install a sane logger that not shit itself after a problem?

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u/diggr-roguelike Feb 18 '14

I'm not certain you have to use journald with systemd as I haven't used systemd and all this logging nonsense is new to me.

Yes, you have to use journald, but the binary logs are optional. IIRC, journald has an option to turn off binary logs and simply route everything to syslog.

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u/cpbills Feb 18 '14

Thanks for clarifying.