Viewing Logs with `journalctl`

The `journalctl` command is used to query and display messages from the systemd journal, which contains logs from the kernel, services, and applications.

Basic `journalctl` Commands

View logs for a specific service

journalctl -u [service_name] --no-pager -n 50

Displays the last 50 log entries for a given service. The `--no-pager` option prevents the output from being paginated.

Follow logs in real-time

journalctl -fu [service_name]

The `-f` (follow) flag streams new log entries to the terminal as they are generated, which is useful for real-time monitoring.

View logs since the last boot

journalctl -b

Displays all log entries from the current boot session. This is very helpful for troubleshooting issues that occur during startup.