How to Enable Persistent Logging for the Systemd Journal

Applies to: 

Oracle Cloud Infrastructure - Version N/A and later 

Linux x86-64 

Goal

This document outlines the steps required to enable persistent logging for the systemd journal. 

The systemd journal is configured by default to store logs only in a small ring-buffer in /run/log/journal, which is not persistent. 

Journal database logs do not survive a system reboot. 

Solution

There are a number of ways to enable persistent systemd journal logs, this method is based on creating the /var/log/journal directory. 

1) Create the directory journal using the below command: 

$ sudo mkdir -p /var/log/journal 

Once the above directory is created the system will automatically start storing the logs at