Bug#950447: Document that persistent journal is now enabled in systemd

[Michael Biebl]

Package: release-notes
Severity: normal

See
https://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2020/02/msg00004.html

We should document in the release notes, that systemd has enabled
persistent logging in journald.
Personally, I would prefer to do that on upgrades and new installations
and document that accordingly (and that is what the systemd package
currently does).

The discussions on debian-devel are still ongoing, so this might still
change though.


-- System Information:
Debian Release: bullseye/sid
APT prefers unstable
APT policy: (500, 'unstable')
Architecture: amd64 (x86_64)
Foreign Architectures: i386

Kernel: Linux 5.4.0-3-amd64 (SMP w/4 CPU cores)
Kernel taint flags: TAINT_WARN
Locale: LANG=de_DE.UTF-8, LC_CTYPE=de_DE.UTF-8 (charmap=UTF-8), LANGUAGE=de_DE.UTF-8 (charmap=UTF-8)
Shell: /bin/sh linked to /bin/dash
Init: systemd (via /run/systemd/system)
LSM: AppArmor: enabled

[Paul Gevers]

Control: tags -1 moreinfo

HI Michael,

Post by Michael Biebl
See
https://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2020/02/msg00004.html
We should document in the release notes, that systemd has enabled
persistent logging in journald.
Personally, I would prefer to do that on upgrades and new installations
and document that accordingly (and that is what the systemd package
currently does).
The discussions on debian-devel are still ongoing, so this might still
change though.

So, what's the end status in bullseye now? Can you propose a text?

Paul

[Michael Biebl]

Hi Paul

Post by Paul Gevers
Control: tags -1 moreinfo
HI Michael,

Post by Michael Biebl
See
https://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2020/02/msg00004.html
We should document in the release notes, that systemd has enabled
persistent logging in journald.
Personally, I would prefer to do that on upgrades and new installations
and document that accordingly (and that is what the systemd package
currently does).
The discussions on debian-devel are still ongoing, so this might still
change though.

So, what's the end status in bullseye now? Can you propose a text?

Yes, the persistent journal is enabled on upgrades and new installations.
What I didn't push for is the demotion of rsyslog from important to
optional, so rsyslog is still installed by default as well.
I plan to change that in bullseye+1 (*)
This is sort of deliberate to have both installed for one release cycle.
Just in case something goes horribly wrong with the persistent journal
(which I don't expect), users still have their known plaintext log files
as fallback.


I'm a bit uncertain, whether I should go into that much detail in the
release notes, especially wrt to rsyslog. But on the other hand, this
way our users are notified in advance that this change is coming.

Paul, wdyt?


(*) My plan would be, to simply demote rsyslog to optional, but not
actively remove it on upgrades.

[Paul Gevers]

Control: tags -1 - moreinfo

Hi Michael,

Post by Michael Biebl
Yes, the persistent journal is enabled on upgrades and new installations.

Thanks.

Post by Michael Biebl
I'm a bit uncertain, whether I should go into that much detail in the
release notes, especially wrt to rsyslog. But on the other hand, this
way our users are notified in advance that this change is coming.

I would say, keep it short. I.e. tell we change the default (it only the
default, right?) on upgrades and how it can be disabled again.

Paul

[Paul Gevers]

Hi Michael,

Post by Paul Gevers

Post by Michael Biebl
Yes, the persistent journal is enabled on upgrades and new installations.

Thanks.

Post by Michael Biebl
I'm a bit uncertain, whether I should go into that much detail in the
release notes, especially wrt to rsyslog. But on the other hand, this
way our users are notified in advance that this change is coming.

I would say, keep it short. I.e. tell we change the default (it only the
default, right?) on upgrades and how it can be disabled again.

Did you already have inspiration? We can also try to write up something,
but I really appreciate it when maintainers do the initial proposal.

Paul

[Justin B Rye]

Post by Paul Gevers

Post by Paul Gevers

Post by Michael Biebl
Yes, the persistent journal is enabled on upgrades and new installations.

Thanks.

Post by Michael Biebl
I'm a bit uncertain, whether I should go into that much detail in the
release notes, especially wrt to rsyslog. But on the other hand, this
way our users are notified in advance that this change is coming.

I would say, keep it short. I.e. tell we change the default (it only the
default, right?) on upgrades and how it can be disabled again.

Did you already have inspiration? We can also try to write up something,
but I really appreciate it when maintainers do the initial proposal.

If nobody knowledgeable has had the time to come up with anything,
maybe the version attached will inspire either improvements or just an
urge to replace it with something completely different.

(The man page pointer should be enough that we don't also need to
spell out a "disabling the journal HOWTO".)

[Andrei POPESCU]

Post by Justin B Rye

Post by Paul Gevers

Post by Paul Gevers

Post by Michael Biebl
Yes, the persistent journal is enabled on upgrades and new installations.

Thanks.

Post by Michael Biebl
I'm a bit uncertain, whether I should go into that much detail in the
release notes, especially wrt to rsyslog. But on the other hand, this
way our users are notified in advance that this change is coming.

I would say, keep it short. I.e. tell we change the default (it only the
default, right?) on upgrades and how it can be disabled again.

Did you already have inspiration? We can also try to write up something,
but I really appreciate it when maintainers do the initial proposal.

If nobody knowledgeable has had the time to come up with anything,
maybe the version attached will inspire either improvements or just an
urge to replace it with something completely different.
(The man page pointer should be enough that we don't also need to
spell out a "disabling the journal HOWTO".)
diff --git a/en/whats-new.dbk b/en/whats-new.dbk
index 1e361e61..399e1977 100644
--- a/en/whats-new.dbk
+++ b/en/whats-new.dbk
@@ -182,6 +182,23 @@ linkend="obsolete"/>.
</para>
</section>
+<section id="persistent journal">
+ <title>Persistent systemd journal</title>
+ <para>
+ Systemd in bullseye activates its persistent journal functionality
+ by default, storing its files in
+ <filename>/var/log/journal/</filename>. See <ulink
+ url="&url-man;/bullseye/systemd/journald.conf.5.html">journald.conf(5)</ulink>
+ for details.

To me systemd-journald.service(8) seems like a better introduction.

It's probably also worth mentioning that on Debian the journal is
readable by members of 'adm', in addition to the default
'systemd-journal' group.

Post by Justin B Rye
+ </para>
+ <para>
+ This should not interfere with any existing traditional logging
+ daemon such as <systemitem role="package">rsyslog</systemitem>, but
+ users who are not relying on special features of such a daemon may
+ wish to uninstall it and switch over to using only the journal.
+ </para>
+</section>
+
<section id="major-packages">
<title>Desktops and well known packages</title>
<para>

Kind regards,
Andrei

[Justin B Rye]

Post by Andrei POPESCU

Post by Justin B Rye
+<section id="persistent journal">
+ <title>Persistent systemd journal</title>
+ <para>
+ Systemd in bullseye activates its persistent journal functionality
+ by default, storing its files in
+ <filename>/var/log/journal/</filename>. See <ulink
+ url="&url-man;/bullseye/systemd/journald.conf.5.html">journald.conf(5)</ulink>
+ for details.

To me systemd-journald.service(8) seems like a better introduction.

And it does have a fairly conspicuous pointer towards journald.conf(5)
and Storage= in particular. Fair enough.

Post by Andrei POPESCU
It's probably also worth mentioning that on Debian the journal is
readable by members of 'adm', in addition to the default
'systemd-journal' group.

So something like the attached:

[Debian Bug Tracking System]

Post by Paul Gevers
tags -1 moreinfo

Bug #950447 [release-notes] Document that persistent journal is now enabled in systemd
Added tag(s) moreinfo.

[Debian Bug Tracking System]

Post by Paul Gevers
tags -1 - moreinfo

Bug #950447 [release-notes] Document that persistent journal is now enabled in systemd
Removed tag(s) moreinfo.

[Debian Bug Tracking System]

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