Clear Systemd Journal Logs in Ubuntu 20.04

sysop

Clear Systemd Journal Logs in Ubuntu 20.04

Systemd has its own logging system called the journal, and the log files are stored in /var/log/journal.

Check current disk usage of journal files

sudo journalctl --disk-usage

Rotate journal files

Active journal files will be marked as archived, so that they are never written to in future.

sudo journalctl --disk-usage

Delete journal logs older than 5 days:

sudo journalctl --vacuum-time=5days

Delete log files until the disk space taken falls below 200M:

sudo journalctl --vacuum-size=200M

Delete old logs and limit file number to 10:

sudo journalctl --vacuum-files=10

The configuration file is located at /etc/systemd/journald.conf. After editing to your preference, reload systemd daemon using sudo systemctl daemon-reload