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Table of contents
Symptom & Impact
Disk usage hits 100 percent and services fail to write state files.
Environment & Reproduction
Long-running systems with verbose logs can accumulate large journals.
Root Cause Analysis
systemd-journald retention is unconstrained for available disk capacity.
Quick Triage
Run df -h and sudo journalctl –disk-usage.
Step-by-Step Diagnosis
Identify top space consumers using sudo du -xh /var/log | sort -h | tail -n 20.
Solution – Primary Fix
Free journal space with sudo journalctl –vacuum-time=7d and set limits in /etc/systemd/journald.conf, then sudo systemctl restart systemd-journald.
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Solution – Alternative Approaches
Archive and rotate application logs using logrotate for non-journal files.
Verification & Acceptance Criteria
Free space returns above alert threshold and critical services restart.
Rollback Plan
Restore previous journald.conf if log retention policy becomes too aggressive.
Prevention & Hardening
Set explicit journal size limits and monitor root filesystem utilization.
Related Errors & Cross-Refs
Related: no space left on device and failed writes in syslog.
Related tutorial: View the step-by-step tutorial for Ubuntu 24.04 LTS.
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Browse all common problems & solutions on the Tutorials Hub.
References & Further Reading
systemd-journald service docs and log rotation best practices.
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