[systemd-devel] Changing database formats for systemd-journald

[Cristian Rodríguez]

On Thu, Jun 26, 2025 at 11:27 AM Gunnar Guðvarðarson <gunnar at meh.is> wrote:
>
> I have attempted to use systemd-journald as a centralized log collector, it works fine and the interface provided by journalctl is very convenient to quickly find things, following logs and other things.
>
> But I quickly discovered the performance implications of doing so, as when the journal gets over a certain size, it practically ceases to function.
>
> See https://github.com/systemd/systemd/issues/2460 for details.
>
> This makes rsyslog's omjournal, and systemd-journal-remote basically useless, right?
>
> So, serious question, can the journal be migrated to a better (indexed?) database format, for example SQLite?

I mean it could be.. performing better on HDDs is very unlikely.
Mantas is closer to the more realistic alternative Wide-column store

As
>
> - if no, why not?
> - if yes, what would a migration path look like?
> - - Implementation bikeshed question, 1 giant db file, or 1 db file per day/hour/gb/tb?
>
> I mentioned SQLite as an example of one that could be used, not sure if the Public Domain license it has would be a problem though.

SQLite license is not a problem and it i probably the best to replace
all sorts of ad-hoc database'ish stuff around. unfortunately I'm
skeptical the journal will gain much switching to it.