[Bug 1618188] Re: systemd journal should be persistent by default: /var/log/journal should be created

[Dimitri John Ledkov]

** Summary changed:

- systemd journal should be persistent by default: /var/log/journal should be created; remove rsyslog from default installs
+ systemd journal should be persistent by default: /var/log/journal should be created

** No longer affects: ubuntu-meta (Ubuntu)

** Also affects: systemd (Ubuntu Bionic)
   Importance: Wishlist
     Assignee: Dimitri John Ledkov (xnox)
       Status: Triaged

** Also affects: systemd (Ubuntu Zesty)
   Importance: Undecided
       Status: New

** Also affects: systemd (Ubuntu Xenial)
   Importance: Undecided
       Status: New

** Also affects: systemd (Ubuntu Artful)
   Importance: Undecided
       Status: New

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https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1618188

Title:
  systemd journal should be persistent by default: /var/log/journal
  should be created

Status in systemd package in Ubuntu:
  Triaged
Status in systemd source package in Xenial:
  New
Status in systemd source package in Zesty:
  New
Status in systemd source package in Artful:
  New
Status in systemd source package in Bionic:
  Triaged

Bug description:
  After upgrading 14.04 -> 16.04, key services are now running on
  systemd and using the systemd journal for logging. In 14.04, key
  system logs like /var/log/messages and /var/log/syslog were
  persistent, but after the upgrade to 16.04 there has a been a
  regression of sorts: Logs sent to systemd's journald are now being
  thrown away during reboots.

  This behavior is controlled by the `Storage=` option in
  `/etc/systemd/journald.conf`. The default setting is `Storage=auto`
  which will persist logs in `/var/log/journal/`, *only if the directory
  already exists*. But the directory was not created as part of the
  14.04 -> 16.04 upgrade, so logging was being lost for a while before I
  realized what was happening.

  This issue could be solved by either creating /var/log/journal or
  changing the default Storage behavior to `Storage=persistent`, which
  would create the directory if need be.

  ## Related reference

   * `systemd` currently compounds the issue by having ["journal --disk-usage" report memory usage as disk usage](https://github.com/systemd/systemd/issues/4059), giving the impression that the disk is being used for logging when it isn't. 
   * [User wonders where to find logs from previous boots, unaware that the logs were thrown away](http://askubuntu.com/questions/765315/how-to-find-previous-boot-log-after-ubuntu-16-04-restarts)

  ## Recommended fix

  Restoring persistent logging as the default is recommended.

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