systemd journal using too much disc space

[Colin Law]

On 22 June 2017 at 09:18, Colin Law <clanlaw at gmail.com> wrote:
> I note that the files in /var/log/journal are consuming 2.9GB and
> journalctl --disk-usage
> also shows 2.9GB. Since this is on Ubuntu 17.04 installed in an 80GB
> partition on an SSD this is a significant chunk of my free disc space.
> As far as I can see journalctl is using its default values as there
> are no commented out settings in /etc/systemd/journald.conf and I
> cannot see any overriding conf files.
>
> I see how to adjust the settings for this but am surprised the default
> is so large. For example if I run
> journalctl -u systemd-resolved.service
> I see 70,000 lines going back over 9 months which seems a bit excessive.
>
> Is what I am seeing to be expected for the default settings?

Ah, I see now why this is. By default systemd does not log to disc,
but if the directory /var/log/journal exists then it *does* log to
disc. Some time ago I created that dir in order to get more detail on
a booting issue. I should have removed it when I had finished.  I have
now done that.

Sorry for the noise.

Colin

>
> Colin