Exactly this. I just want a stream of logs that I can process with ordinary unix...

Spivak · on Nov 21, 2020

If that’s all you want there’s really no hoops.

   journalctl | grep

Does what you would expect, it will happily (and by default on most distros) forward to syslog if you want files.

The big ease-of-use win for journald is that it captures process stdout. No need to run daemons in the foreground ever.

throwaway894345 · on Nov 22, 2020

close, but it’s actually

    sudo journalctl -u $service -f | grep

Not a huge deal, but I have to google it every few months because I don’t use it very often.

Note also that if I just want the log stream, I have to pipe through less to get the full log messages. There’s also a flag for it, but I can’t remember my workaround is easier than digging through man pages.

Again, no big deal, just friction. Like everything in the systemd ecosystem—everything is manageable, but it’s tedious.