Reduce the Maximum Journal Size
Summary
Reduce the amount of disk space that the journal can use, by introducing a 3 month retention limit, on top of the existing 4 GB disk space limit.
Owner
- Name: chrismurphy
- Email: <your email address so we can contact you, invite you to meetings, etc. Please provide your Bugzilla email address if it is different from your email in FAS>
Current status
- Targeted release: Fedora Linux 38
- Last updated: 2022-12-21
- FESCo issue: <will be assigned by the Wrangler>
- Tracker bug: <will be assigned by the Wrangler>
- Release notes tracker: <will be assigned by the Wrangler>
Detailed Description
Currently, the journal can occupy up to 4 GB of disk space. 4 GB is a lot of space to use for logs, and this has been a source of user complaints.
Limiting the journal logs to 3 months retention is primarily intended to reduce the amount of disk space used. The time-based limit also intended to set the journal limit based on the need for the data, as opposed to the more arbitrary disk space criteria.
Feedback
- October 2020: systemd issue - Reduce default journal disk space size limit
- January 2021: thinking journal retention limits mailing list thread
- January 2021: Workstation Working Group issue
- September 2022: Limiting the (systemd) journal size mailing list thread
Benefit to Fedora
- Reduce the amount of disk space used for logs, thus increasing the amount of space available for other things
- Reduce user complaints
- A more privacy-conscious design
Scope
- Proposal owners:
- Propose the journal limit change upstream in systemd
- If the change isn't accepted in systemd, implement it as a downstream patch
- Other developers:
- Other developers aren't expected to be affected
- Release engineering: #Releng issue number
- Policies and guidelines: N/A (not needed for this Change)
- Trademark approval: N/A (not needed for this Change)
- Alignment with Objectives: N/A (not needed for this Change)
Upgrade/compatibility impact
How To Test
Post-release it will be useful to validate that the change has had the intended effect of reducing disk usage. This can be checked with sudo journalctl --disk-usage
.
User Experience
The main user experience change will be increased disk space availability.
Dependencies
No dependencies.
Contingency Plan
- Contingency mechanism: proposal owner to revert the code change if necessary.
- Contingency deadline: beta freeze.
- Blocks release? No.