<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN"> <html> <head> <meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1"> </head> <body text="#000000" bgcolor="#ffffff"> Please excuse this repost, but i think the context has changed. I originally posted this problem as a lack of understanding of the documentation for systemd-journald.conf. Now, however, I believe that it is a problem where at least some of the limits in systemd-journald.conf are being incorrectly handled, resulting in a runaway system.journal file. Regards, Dave. <blockquote cite="mid:4F5254ED.3040002@lambsys.com" type="cite"> On 02/29/2012 07:26 AM, Lennart Poettering wrote: <blockquote cite="mid:20120229132607.GC9253@tango.0pointer.de" type="cite"> <pre wrap="">You can put limits on the log size however, for example via SystemMaxUse=64M or SystemKeepFree=500M or suchlike. </pre> </blockquote> </blockquote> Further experimentation seems to indicate that the first time a limit is reached, the system trims the log file back, BUT subsequently it appears to ignore all limits: root@argus2:~# du -s /run/log/journal/bd4dce8541064e29b00e90f7234b3287/system.journal -h 252K    /run/log/journal/bd4dce8541064e29b00e90f7234b3287/system.journal root@argus2:~# du -s /run/log/journal/bd4dce8541064e29b00e90f7234b3287/system.journal -h 256K    /run/log/journal/bd4dce8541064e29b00e90f7234b3287/system.journal root@argus2:~# du -s /run/log/journal/bd4dce8541064e29b00e90f7234b3287/system.journal -h 296K    /run/log/journal/bd4dce8541064e29b00e90f7234b3287/system.journal root@argus2:~# du -s /run/log/journal/bd4dce8541064e29b00e90f7234b3287/system.journal -h 300K    /run/log/journal/bd4dce8541064e29b00e90f7234b3287/system.journal root@argus2:~# du -s /run/log/journal/bd4dce8541064e29b00e90f7234b3287/system.journal -h 68K    /run/log/journal/bd4dce8541064e29b00e90f7234b3287/system.journal <<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<journal file trimmed as expected root@argus2:~# du -s /run/log/journal/bd4dce8541064e29b00e90f7234b3287/system.journal -h 76K    /run/log/journal/bd4dce8541064e29b00e90f7234b3287/system.journal root@argus2:~# du -s /run/log/journal/bd4dce8541064e29b00e90f7234b3287/system.journal -h 76K    /run/log/journal/bd4dce8541064e29b00e90f7234b3287/system.journal root@argus2:~# du -s /run/log/journal/bd4dce8541064e29b00e90f7234b3287/system.journal -h 88K    /run/log/journal/bd4dce8541064e29b00e90f7234b3287/system.journal root@argus2:~# du -s /run/log/journal/bd4dce8541064e29b00e90f7234b3287/system.journal -h 100K    /run/log/journal/bd4dce8541064e29b00e90f7234b3287/system.journal root@argus2:~# du -s /run/log/journal/bd4dce8541064e29b00e90f7234b3287/system.journal -h 132K    /run/log/journal/bd4dce8541064e29b00e90f7234b3287/system.journal root@argus2:~# du -s /run/log/journal/bd4dce8541064e29b00e90f7234b3287/system.journal -h 140K    /run/log/journal/bd4dce8541064e29b00e90f7234b3287/system.journal root@argus2:~# du -s /run/log/journal/bd4dce8541064e29b00e90f7234b3287/system.journal -h 160K    /run/log/journal/bd4dce8541064e29b00e90f7234b3287/system.journal root@argus2:~# du -s /run/log/journal/bd4dce8541064e29b00e90f7234b3287/system.journal -h 272K    /run/log/journal/bd4dce8541064e29b00e90f7234b3287/system.journal root@argus2:~# du -s /run/log/journal/bd4dce8541064e29b00e90f7234b3287/system.journal -h 288K    /run/log/journal/bd4dce8541064e29b00e90f7234b3287/system.journal root@argus2:~# du -s /run/log/journal/bd4dce8541064e29b00e90f7234b3287/system.journal -h 336K    /run/log/journal/bd4dce8541064e29b00e90f7234b3287/system.journal root@argus2:~# du -s /run/log/journal/bd4dce8541064e29b00e90f7234b3287/system.journal -h 612K    /run/log/journal/bd4dce8541064e29b00e90f7234b3287/system.journal<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<journal file continues to grow ...... ... root@argus2:~# du -s /run/log/journal/bd4dce8541064e29b00e90f7234b3287/system.journal -h 1.3M    /run/log/journal/bd4dce8541064e29b00e90f7234b3287/system.journal<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<....and grow until all memory is exhausted :( Configuration file is: root@argus2:~# cat /etc/systemd/systemd-journald.conf #  This file is part of systemd. # #  systemd is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it #  under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by #  the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or #  (at your option) any later version. # # See system-journald.conf(5) for details [Journal] #Compress=yes #RateLimitInterval=10s #RateLimitBurst=200 SystemMaxUse=100K #SystemKeepFree= SystemMaxFileSize=200K #SystemMinFileSize= RuntimeMaxUse=1M #RuntimeKeepFree= RuntimeMaxFileSize=300K #RuntimeMinFileSize= ForwardToSyslog=no #ForwardToKMsg=no #ForwardToConsole=no #ImportKernel=yes </body> </html>