Host Journal Configuration Change

Product support balenaOS
1

Hi,
We are now starting to learn the balenaOS (Prebuild) for a new product we are working on. One of the features we need active is log management. Because you are working with Journal, we would also like to use it.

The are two issues.

  1. We can’t write any configuration because the file system is read-only. We have tried to add a file to the folder /etc/systemd/journald.conf.d/. What should I do to write into the file system?
  2. I have read in one of the messages of the forum that after a system update, the configuration will be erased. Do you have any updates about this issue?

Is there any configuration to work with Rsyslog and not journal? Or be able to run them together

Thanks

1 Like
2

Hello @YehonatanElentok welcome to the balena community!

balenaOS has a read-only filesystem, you can read more here → What is balenaOS? - Balena Documentation

What configuration do you need to write on /etc/systemd/journald.conf.d?

One of the features we need active is log management. Because you are working with Journal, we would also like to use it.

In case that you would like to work with the logs, did you try to get the logs from the Supervisor API? Read more here.

The main idea at balena is that you can build all of this from a container and interact with the HostOS via the application running on your container.

Let us know if you have more questions as we would like to help you more to succeed.

4

Thanks for your response.

In our project, we need to have a smart logger application. Today, we use Rsyslog as the main logger in a different project. The Rsyslog allows us to filter, sort, and publish the logs into a remote server. In general, the Rsyslog is powerful.

In the new project, we would like to get the same abilities with Systemd logger (Journal) as the Rsyslog gives us. We have decided to use the system logger because you already integrated it into your ecosystem support. But we had a few issues:

  1. There is no way to modify the configuration of the Journal because the host file system is read-only.
  2. We can’t filter the logs by facility or by level.
  3. The user’s print(stdout) is added to the log file without filtering.
  4. We can’t save just the critical logs into a persistent file. With the current settings, we can keep all the logs or nothing.

Suppose you don’t provide the option to modify the host’s configuration. Do you have any alternatives, like Balena image for Rsyslog or Syslog- that integrate with the Journal?