blob: 578e074f578215e72a8fad6d941256d2de28a876 [file] [log] [blame] [raw]
<?xml version='1.0'?> <!--*-nxml-*-->
<!DOCTYPE refentry PUBLIC "-//OASIS//DTD DocBook XML V4.5//EN"
"http://www.oasis-open.org/docbook/xml/4.2/docbookx.dtd">
<!-- SPDX-License-Identifier: LGPL-2.1-or-later -->
<refentry id="systemd.journal-fields">
<refentryinfo>
<title>systemd.journal-fields</title>
<productname>systemd</productname>
</refentryinfo>
<refmeta>
<refentrytitle>systemd.journal-fields</refentrytitle>
<manvolnum>7</manvolnum>
</refmeta>
<refnamediv>
<refname>systemd.journal-fields</refname>
<refpurpose>Special journal fields</refpurpose>
</refnamediv>
<refsect1>
<title>Description</title>
<para>Entries in the journal (as written by
<citerefentry><refentrytitle>systemd-journald.service</refentrytitle><manvolnum>8</manvolnum></citerefentry>)
resemble a UNIX process environment block in syntax but with fields that may include binary data.
Primarily, fields are formatted UTF-8 text strings, and binary encoding is used only where formatting as
UTF-8 text strings makes little sense. New fields may freely be defined by applications, but a few fields
have special meanings. All fields with special meanings are optional. In some cases, fields may appear
more than once per entry.</para>
</refsect1>
<refsect1>
<title>User Journal Fields</title>
<para>User fields are fields that are directly passed from clients
and stored in the journal.</para>
<variablelist class='journal-directives'>
<varlistentry>
<term><varname>MESSAGE=</varname></term>
<listitem>
<para>The human-readable message string for this entry. This
is supposed to be the primary text shown to the user. It is
usually not translated (but might be in some cases), and is
not supposed to be parsed for metadata.</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term><varname>MESSAGE_ID=</varname></term>
<listitem>
<para>A 128-bit message identifier ID for recognizing certain message types, if this is desirable. This
should contain a 128-bit ID formatted as a lower-case hexadecimal string, without any separating dashes or
suchlike. This is recommended to be a UUID-compatible ID, but this is not enforced, and formatted
differently. Developers can generate a new ID for this purpose with <command>systemd-id128 new</command>.
</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term><varname>PRIORITY=</varname></term>
<listitem>
<para>A priority value between 0 (<literal>emerg</literal>)
and 7 (<literal>debug</literal>) formatted as a decimal
string. This field is compatible with syslog's priority
concept.</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term><varname>CODE_FILE=</varname></term>
<term><varname>CODE_LINE=</varname></term>
<term><varname>CODE_FUNC=</varname></term>
<listitem>
<para>The code location generating this message, if known.
Contains the source filename, the line number and the
function name.</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term><varname>ERRNO=</varname></term>
<listitem>
<para>The low-level Unix error number causing this entry, if
any. Contains the numeric value of
<citerefentry project='man-pages'><refentrytitle>errno</refentrytitle><manvolnum>3</manvolnum></citerefentry>
formatted as a decimal string.</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term><varname>INVOCATION_ID=</varname></term>
<term><varname>USER_INVOCATION_ID=</varname></term>
<listitem>
<para>A randomized, unique 128-bit ID identifying each runtime cycle of the unit. This is different from
<varname>_SYSTEMD_INVOCATION_ID</varname> in that it is only used for messages coming from systemd code
(e.g. logs from the system/user manager or from forked processes performing systemd-related setup).</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term><varname>SYSLOG_FACILITY=</varname></term>
<term><varname>SYSLOG_IDENTIFIER=</varname></term>
<term><varname>SYSLOG_PID=</varname></term>
<term><varname>SYSLOG_TIMESTAMP=</varname></term>
<listitem>
<para>Syslog compatibility fields containing the facility (formatted as
decimal string), the identifier string (i.e. "tag"), the client PID, and
the timestamp as specified in the original datagram. (Note that the tag is
usually derived from glibc's
<varname>program_invocation_short_name</varname> variable, see
<citerefentry project='die-net'><refentrytitle>program_invocation_short_name</refentrytitle><manvolnum>3</manvolnum></citerefentry>.)</para>
<para>Note that the journal service does not validate the values of any structured
journal fields whose name is not prefixed with an underscore, and this includes any
syslog related fields such as these. Hence, applications that supply a facility, PID,
or log level are expected to do so properly formatted, i.e. as numeric integers formatted
as decimal strings.</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term><varname>SYSLOG_RAW=</varname></term>
<listitem>
<para>The original contents of the syslog line as received in the syslog
datagram. This field is only included if the <varname>MESSAGE=</varname>
field was modified compared to the original payload or the timestamp could
not be located properly and is not included in
<varname>SYSLOG_TIMESTAMP=</varname>. Message truncation occurs when when
the message contains leading or trailing whitespace (trailing and leading
whitespace is stripped), or it contains an embedded
<constant>NUL</constant> byte (the <constant>NUL</constant> byte and
anything after it is not included). Thus, the original syslog line is
either stored as <varname>SYSLOG_RAW=</varname> or it can be recreated
based on the stored priority and facility, timestamp, identifier, and the
message payload in <varname>MESSAGE=</varname>.
</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term><varname>DOCUMENTATION=</varname></term>
<listitem>
<para>A documentation URL with further information about the topic of the log message. Tools such
as <command>journalctl</command> will include a hyperlink to an URL specified this way in their
output. Should be a <literal>http://</literal>, <literal>https://</literal>,
<literal>file:/</literal>, <literal>man:</literal> or <literal>info:</literal> URL.</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term><varname>TID=</varname></term>
<listitem>
<para>The numeric thread ID (TID) the log message originates from.</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
</variablelist>
</refsect1>
<refsect1>
<title>Trusted Journal Fields</title>
<para>Fields prefixed with an underscore are trusted fields, i.e.
fields that are implicitly added by the journal and cannot be
altered by client code.</para>
<variablelist class='journal-directives'>
<varlistentry>
<term><varname>_PID=</varname></term>
<term><varname>_UID=</varname></term>
<term><varname>_GID=</varname></term>
<listitem>
<para>The process, user, and group ID of the process the
journal entry originates from formatted as a decimal
string. Note that entries obtained via <literal>stdout</literal> or
<literal>stderr</literal> of forked processes will contain credentials valid for a parent
process (that initiated the connection to <command>systemd-journald</command>).</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term><varname>_COMM=</varname></term>
<term><varname>_EXE=</varname></term>
<term><varname>_CMDLINE=</varname></term>
<listitem>
<para>The name, the executable path, and the command line of
the process the journal entry originates from.</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term><varname>_CAP_EFFECTIVE=</varname></term>
<listitem>
<para>The effective
<citerefentry project='man-pages'><refentrytitle>capabilities</refentrytitle><manvolnum>7</manvolnum></citerefentry>
of the process the journal entry originates from.</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term><varname>_AUDIT_SESSION=</varname></term>
<term><varname>_AUDIT_LOGINUID=</varname></term>
<listitem>
<para>The session and login UID of the process the journal
entry originates from, as maintained by the kernel audit
subsystem.</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term><varname>_SYSTEMD_CGROUP=</varname></term>
<term><varname>_SYSTEMD_SLICE=</varname></term>
<term><varname>_SYSTEMD_UNIT=</varname></term>
<term><varname>_SYSTEMD_USER_UNIT=</varname></term>
<term><varname>_SYSTEMD_USER_SLICE=</varname></term>
<term><varname>_SYSTEMD_SESSION=</varname></term>
<term><varname>_SYSTEMD_OWNER_UID=</varname></term>
<listitem>
<para>The control group path in the systemd hierarchy, the systemd slice unit name, the systemd
unit name, the unit name in the systemd user manager (if any), the systemd session ID (if any), and
the owner UID of the systemd user unit or systemd session (if any) of the process the journal entry
originates from.</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term><varname>_SELINUX_CONTEXT=</varname></term>
<listitem>
<para>The SELinux security context (label) of the process
the journal entry originates from.</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term><varname>_SOURCE_REALTIME_TIMESTAMP=</varname></term>
<listitem>
<para>The earliest trusted timestamp of the message, if any
is known that is different from the reception time of the
journal. This is the time in microseconds since the epoch
UTC, formatted as a decimal string.</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term><varname>_BOOT_ID=</varname></term>
<listitem>
<para>The kernel boot ID for the boot the message was
generated in, formatted as a 128-bit hexadecimal
string.</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term><varname>_MACHINE_ID=</varname></term>
<listitem>
<para>The machine ID of the originating host, as available
in
<citerefentry><refentrytitle>machine-id</refentrytitle><manvolnum>5</manvolnum></citerefentry>.</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term><varname>_SYSTEMD_INVOCATION_ID=</varname></term>
<listitem>
<para>The invocation ID for the runtime cycle of the unit
the message was generated in, as available to processes
of the unit in <varname>$INVOCATION_ID</varname> (see
<citerefentry><refentrytitle>systemd.exec</refentrytitle><manvolnum>5</manvolnum></citerefentry>).</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term><varname>_HOSTNAME=</varname></term>
<listitem>
<para>The name of the originating host.</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term><varname>_TRANSPORT=</varname></term>
<listitem>
<para>How the entry was received by the journal service.
Valid transports are:
</para>
<variablelist>
<varlistentry>
<term>
<option>audit</option>
</term>
<listitem>
<para>for those read from the kernel audit subsystem
</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term>
<option>driver</option>
</term>
<listitem>
<para>for internally generated messages
</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term>
<option>syslog</option>
</term>
<listitem>
<para>for those received via the local syslog socket
with the syslog protocol
</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term>
<option>journal</option>
</term>
<listitem>
<para>for those received via the native journal
protocol
</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term>
<option>stdout</option>
</term>
<listitem>
<para>for those read from a service's standard output
or error output
</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term>
<option>kernel</option>
</term>
<listitem>
<para>for those read from the kernel
</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
</variablelist>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term><varname>_STREAM_ID=</varname></term>
<listitem>
<para>Only applies to <literal>_TRANSPORT=stdout</literal> records: specifies a randomized 128bit ID assigned
to the stream connection when it was first created. This ID is useful to reconstruct individual log streams
from the log records: all log records carrying the same stream ID originate from the same stream.</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term><varname>_LINE_BREAK=</varname></term>
<listitem>
<para>Only applies to <literal>_TRANSPORT=stdout</literal> records: indicates that the log message
in the standard output/error stream was not terminated with a normal newline character
(<literal>\n</literal>, i.e. ASCII 10). Specifically, when set this field is one of
<option>nul</option> (in case the line was terminated by a <constant>NUL</constant> byte), <option>line-max</option> (in
case the maximum log line length was reached, as configured with <varname>LineMax=</varname> in
<citerefentry><refentrytitle>journald.conf</refentrytitle><manvolnum>5</manvolnum></citerefentry>),
<option>eof</option> (if this was the last log record of a stream and the stream ended without a
final newline character), or <option>pid-change</option> (if the process which generated the log
output changed in the middle of a line). Note that this record is not generated when a normal
newline character was used for marking the log line end.</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term><varname>_NAMESPACE=</varname></term>
<listitem><para>If this file was written by a <command>systemd-journald</command> instance managing a
journal namespace that is not the default, this field contains the namespace identifier. See
<citerefentry><refentrytitle>systemd-journald.service</refentrytitle><manvolnum>8</manvolnum></citerefentry>
for details about journal namespaces.</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
</variablelist>
</refsect1>
<refsect1>
<title>Kernel Journal Fields</title>
<para>Kernel fields are fields that are used by messages
originating in the kernel and stored in the journal.</para>
<variablelist class='journal-directives'>
<varlistentry>
<term><varname>_KERNEL_DEVICE=</varname></term>
<listitem>
<para>The kernel device name. If the entry is associated to a block device, contains the major and
minor numbers of the device node, separated by <literal>:</literal> and prefixed by
<literal>b</literal>. Similarly for character devices, but prefixed by <literal>c</literal>. For
network devices, this is the interface index prefixed by <literal>n</literal>. For all other
devices, this is the subsystem name prefixed by <literal>+</literal>, followed by
<literal>:</literal>, followed by the kernel device name.</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term><varname>_KERNEL_SUBSYSTEM=</varname></term>
<listitem>
<para>The kernel subsystem name.</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term><varname>_UDEV_SYSNAME=</varname></term>
<listitem>
<para>The kernel device name as it shows up in the device
tree below <filename>/sys/</filename>.</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term><varname>_UDEV_DEVNODE=</varname></term>
<listitem>
<para>The device node path of this device in
<filename>/dev/</filename>.</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term><varname>_UDEV_DEVLINK=</varname></term>
<listitem>
<para>Additional symlink names pointing to the device node
in <filename>/dev/</filename>. This field is frequently set
more than once per entry.</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
</variablelist>
</refsect1>
<refsect1>
<title>Fields to log on behalf of a different program</title>
<para>Fields in this section are used by programs to specify that
they are logging on behalf of another program or unit.
</para>
<para>Fields used by the <command>systemd-coredump</command>
coredump kernel helper:
</para>
<variablelist class='journal-directives'>
<varlistentry>
<term><varname>COREDUMP_UNIT=</varname></term>
<term><varname>COREDUMP_USER_UNIT=</varname></term>
<listitem>
<para>Used to annotate messages containing coredumps from
system and session units. See
<citerefentry><refentrytitle>coredumpctl</refentrytitle><manvolnum>1</manvolnum></citerefentry>.
</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
</variablelist>
<para>Privileged programs (currently UID 0) may attach
<varname>OBJECT_PID=</varname> to a message. This will instruct
<command>systemd-journald</command> to attach additional fields on
behalf of the caller:</para>
<variablelist class='journal-directives'>
<varlistentry>
<term><varname>OBJECT_PID=<replaceable>PID</replaceable></varname></term>
<listitem>
<para>PID of the program that this message pertains to.
</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term><varname>OBJECT_UID=</varname></term>
<term><varname>OBJECT_GID=</varname></term>
<term><varname>OBJECT_COMM=</varname></term>
<term><varname>OBJECT_EXE=</varname></term>
<term><varname>OBJECT_CMDLINE=</varname></term>
<term><varname>OBJECT_AUDIT_SESSION=</varname></term>
<term><varname>OBJECT_AUDIT_LOGINUID=</varname></term>
<term><varname>OBJECT_SYSTEMD_CGROUP=</varname></term>
<term><varname>OBJECT_SYSTEMD_SESSION=</varname></term>
<term><varname>OBJECT_SYSTEMD_OWNER_UID=</varname></term>
<term><varname>OBJECT_SYSTEMD_UNIT=</varname></term>
<term><varname>OBJECT_SYSTEMD_USER_UNIT=</varname></term>
<listitem>
<para>These are additional fields added automatically by
<command>systemd-journald</command>. Their meaning is the
same as
<varname>_UID=</varname>,
<varname>_GID=</varname>,
<varname>_COMM=</varname>,
<varname>_EXE=</varname>,
<varname>_CMDLINE=</varname>,
<varname>_AUDIT_SESSION=</varname>,
<varname>_AUDIT_LOGINUID=</varname>,
<varname>_SYSTEMD_CGROUP=</varname>,
<varname>_SYSTEMD_SESSION=</varname>,
<varname>_SYSTEMD_UNIT=</varname>,
<varname>_SYSTEMD_USER_UNIT=</varname>, and
<varname>_SYSTEMD_OWNER_UID=</varname>
as described above, except that the process identified by
<replaceable>PID</replaceable> is described, instead of the
process which logged the message.</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
</variablelist>
</refsect1>
<refsect1>
<title>Address Fields</title>
<para>During serialization into external formats, such as the
<ulink
url="https://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/systemd/export">Journal
Export Format</ulink> or the <ulink
url="https://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/systemd/json">Journal
JSON Format</ulink>, the addresses of journal entries are
serialized into fields prefixed with double underscores. Note that
these are not proper fields when stored in the journal but for
addressing metadata of entries. They cannot be written as part of
structured log entries via calls such as
<citerefentry><refentrytitle>sd_journal_send</refentrytitle><manvolnum>3</manvolnum></citerefentry>.
They may also not be used as matches for
<citerefentry><refentrytitle>sd_journal_add_match</refentrytitle><manvolnum>3</manvolnum></citerefentry>.
</para>
<variablelist class='journal-directives'>
<varlistentry>
<term><varname>__CURSOR=</varname></term>
<listitem>
<para>The cursor for the entry. A cursor is an opaque text
string that uniquely describes the position of an entry in
the journal and is portable across machines, platforms and
journal files.
</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term><varname>__REALTIME_TIMESTAMP=</varname></term>
<listitem>
<para>The wallclock time
(<constant>CLOCK_REALTIME</constant>) at the point in time
the entry was received by the journal, in microseconds since
the epoch UTC, formatted as a decimal string. This has
different properties from
<literal>_SOURCE_REALTIME_TIMESTAMP=</literal>, as it is
usually a bit later but more likely to be monotonic.
</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term><varname>__MONOTONIC_TIMESTAMP=</varname></term>
<listitem>
<para>The monotonic time
(<constant>CLOCK_MONOTONIC</constant>) at the point in time
the entry was received by the journal in microseconds,
formatted as a decimal string. To be useful as an address
for the entry, this should be combined with the boot ID in
<literal>_BOOT_ID=</literal>.
</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
</variablelist>
</refsect1>
<refsect1>
<title>See Also</title>
<para>
<citerefentry><refentrytitle>systemd</refentrytitle><manvolnum>1</manvolnum></citerefentry>,
<citerefentry><refentrytitle>systemd-journald.service</refentrytitle><manvolnum>8</manvolnum></citerefentry>,
<citerefentry><refentrytitle>journalctl</refentrytitle><manvolnum>1</manvolnum></citerefentry>,
<citerefentry><refentrytitle>journald.conf</refentrytitle><manvolnum>5</manvolnum></citerefentry>,
<citerefentry><refentrytitle>sd-journal</refentrytitle><manvolnum>3</manvolnum></citerefentry>,
<citerefentry><refentrytitle>coredumpctl</refentrytitle><manvolnum>1</manvolnum></citerefentry>,
<citerefentry><refentrytitle>systemd.directives</refentrytitle><manvolnum>7</manvolnum></citerefentry>
</para>
</refsect1>
</refentry>