Conclusion

Logging can be a moving target in modern production environments. Learning and experimenting with the basics covered in this chapter should give you a good foundation. It is our hope that getting comfortable with syslog and journalctl will also equip you with a low-level understanding and historical perspective that will make it easier for you to work out how tomorrow’s logging-as-a-service solution actually works under the covers.

We think you’ll find that the skills you learned in this chapter give you a practical, measurable advantage when it comes to designing, debugging, and optimizing the applications you create and deploy. Mastering the basics of journald, as you just saw, lets you swiftly diagnose and pinpoint issues, whether they are related to your application specifically or to the larger Linux system around it. Having some understanding of alternative and historical Linux logging approaches will help when you’re troubleshooting systems...