Location of journald.conf

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,
1

where is journald.conf located on Fedora? According to the freedesktop.org it should be in /etc/systemd but on my system it is missing.

I need too keep the size of journal manageable.

2

The distro-provided one is at /usr/lib/systemd/journald.conf.

You can add your own overrides at /etc/systemd/journald.conf or at various other locations:

           /etc/systemd/journald.conf
           /run/systemd/journald.conf
           /usr/local/lib/systemd/journald.conf
           /usr/lib/systemd/journald.conf
           /etc/systemd/journald.conf.d/*.conf
           /run/systemd/journald.conf.d/*.conf
           /usr/local/lib/systemd/journald.conf.d/*.conf
           /usr/lib/systemd/journald.conf.d/*.conf
           /etc/systemd/journald@NAMESPACE.conf
           /etc/systemd/journald@NAMESPACE.conf.d/*.conf
           /run/systemd/journald@NAMESPACE.conf.d/*.conf
           /usr/local/lib/systemd/journald@NAMESPACE.conf.d/*.conf
           /usr/lib/systemd/journald@NAMESPACE.conf.d/*.conf
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4

For future reference, you can often utilise the locate command to search for specific files.

┌─🎩 lurcher ~
├─
└─➜ locate journald.conf                                                          12:32 Wed 28-Jan
/usr/lib/systemd/journald.conf
/usr/share/man/man5/journald.conf.5.gz
/usr/share/man/man5/journald.conf.d.5.gz
/var/lib/snapd/snap/core18/2976/etc/systemd/journald.conf
/var/lib/snapd/snap/core18/2979/etc/systemd/journald.conf
/var/lib/snapd/snap/core20/2682/etc/systemd/journald.conf
/var/lib/snapd/snap/core20/2682/etc/systemd/journald.conf.d
/var/lib/snapd/snap/core20/2686/etc/systemd/journald.conf
/var/lib/snapd/snap/core20/2686/etc/systemd/journald.conf.d
/var/lib/snapd/snap/core22/2193/etc/systemd/journald.conf
/var/lib/snapd/snap/core22/2193/etc/systemd/journald.conf.d
/var/lib/snapd/snap/core22/2216/etc/systemd/journald.conf
/var/lib/snapd/snap/core22/2216/etc/systemd/journald.conf.d
/var/lib/snapd/snap/core24/1243/etc/systemd/journald.conf
/var/lib/snapd/snap/core24/1243/etc/systemd/journald.conf.d
/var/lib/snapd/snap/core24/1243/usr/lib/systemd/journald.conf.d
/var/lib/snapd/snap/core24/1243/usr/lib/systemd/journald.conf.d/syslog.conf
/var/lib/snapd/snap/core24/1267/etc/systemd/journald.conf
/var/lib/snapd/snap/core24/1267/etc/systemd/journald.conf.d
/var/lib/snapd/snap/core24/1267/usr/lib/systemd/journald.conf.d
/var/lib/snapd/snap/core24/1267/usr/lib/systemd/journald.conf.d/syslog.conf
2 Likes
5

Often man <config-file-name> will tell you about the config file.
In this case man journald.conf tells you.

The config files in /etc are for the user’s config that overrides the config provided in /usr. Most apps work this way these days, but not all.

Becuase the config file in /etc can be empty or missin g it makes upgrading far more robust.