Var/log/journal/... log files consumed 27GB

Virtualmin
1

SYSTEM INFORMATION
OS type and version | Ubuntu Linux 20.04.4
Webmin version | 1.994
Virtualmin version | 7.1-1

On one of my VPSs I noticed huge disk usage. When I investigated I found that the System Log was massive. I narrowed it down to this folder: var/log/journal/86a903cccac0598ed9c92e55fca2efd8 with a size of around 27GB (please see the screenshot below)

image

I have no idea what this folder is for and how to get rid of this log. I’ll appreciate it if you guide me on how to eliminate this problem.

2

Hello,

This supposed to happen automatically but you can force it with:

journalctl --flush --rotate
journalctl --vacuum-time=7d       # keep only the past seven days of logs
3

Thank you @Ilia

I did both provided commands but looks like nothing changed.

This is the exact copy of my terminal:

root@web:~# journalctl --flush --rotate
root@web:~# journalctl --vacuum-time=7d
Vacuuming done, freed 0B of archived journals from /run/log/journal.
Vacuuming done, freed 0B of archived journals from /var/log/journal/86a903cccac0                                                           598ed9c92e55fca2efd8.
Vacuuming done, freed 0B of archived journals from /var/log/journal.

Interesting that I have this problem only on one of 4 similar VPSs

I forced the log rotation from Virtualmin, I’ve got this error:

I tried to enable disk quotas:

I’ve got this error:

4

The default maximum journal size is only 4GB (or 10% of the disk, whichever is smaller). So…something is awry. You’ve either increased that max size, or your base image has non-default settings.

5

Thank you Joe. I can assure you that I did not do anything related to journal size change.

How can I bring my base image to the default settings?
Is it safe to delete these files?

6

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