● Covered by 1 source · 1 reportMedium impact1 negative
systemd-journald causes excessive disk writes, up to 110KB+ per log line
Key points
- systemd-journald writes 49KB+ (ext4) / 110KB+ (btrfs) per log line.
- Observed on systemd version 257.9, Debian 13, Linux kernel 6.12.57+.
- Causes VMs to perform ~50 IOPS when writing two log lines per second.
- The issue is a recurrence of a previously closed bug (#15292).
Excessive Disk I/O Identified
A bug report has been filed detailing excessive disk write activity by systemd-journald. The issue manifests as systemd-journald writing over 49KB on ext4 filesystems and more than 110KB on btrfs filesystems for each individual log line. This behavior is significantly higher than expected for log writes.
Impact on System Performance
The reported problem leads to substantial I/O operations. For instance, a virtual machine generating only two log lines per second was observed to perform approximately 50 IOPS. This level of disk activity can degrade VM performance and increase wear on storage devices.
Reproducible on Specific Configuration
The issue was observed with systemd version 257.9, running on Debian 13 with a Linux kernel version 6.12.57+deb13-amd64. The problem occurs when journald is configured to write logs to a hard drive, with XFS being one of the filesystems where it was reproduced. The reporter noted this is a re-occurrence of a previously closed issue, #15292.
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Primary sources
GitHub cmc_internal/api GitHub github/collect GitHub _view_fragments/issues GitHub systemd/systemd GitHub user-attachments/assets GitHub 40262/systemdReporting from
A bug report details that systemd-journald, version 257.9, on Debian 13 with Linux kernel 6.12.57+, is causing excessive disk I/O, writing tens of kilobytes for each log line. This issue significantly increases disk activity, impacting VM performance and potentially reducing hardware lifespan.