Hands-on Lab·Red Hat Certified System Administrator
Persistent systemd Journal Configuration
By default the journal lives on tmpfs and is destroyed at every reboot - so the logs explaining why a machine went down are gone by the time you can read them. This configures persistence and then **actually reboots the machine** to prove it, which is the only honest way to demonstrate the objective.
Operating Running Systems Guide 29 of 67 Intermediate
- OSRHEL 10.0 (Coughlan)
- Kernel6.12.0-55.9.1.el10_0
- dnf4.20.0
- Flatpak1.16.0
- TimeAbout 15 min
- Reviewed23 August 2026
Written against the versions above. `Storage=auto` is the default: use `/var/log/journal` if that directory exists, otherwise `/run/log/journal`. So creating the directory is half the configuration, and on many systems it is the *whole* of it. Setting `Storage=persistent` makes the intent explicit and creates the directory if needed.
| Server Name | IP Address | OS | Roles | CPU | RAM | HDD |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| RHCSA-A01 | 192.168.0.31 | RHEL 10.0 (Coughlan) | Practice node (graded) - spare /dev/sda | 2 Core | 4 GB | 50 GB + 15 GB |
Before you start
- A sudo-capable account.
- The machine is rebooted in the middle of this guide. That is the point of it.
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Where it is stored, and why that is a problem
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Configuring it with a drop-in
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Restarting is not migrating
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A marker, and then a reboot
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After the reboot
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Reading a previous boot, and capping the size