Where does Linux store my syslog?

Better Stack Team
Updated on November 16, 2022

Linux has a special directory for storing logs. This directory contains collected logs from the operating system itself, services and other applications running on the system.

The actual location differed depending on Linux flavor:

  • On Ubuntu machines, you can find the logs in the following directory
 
/var/log/syslog
  • On a RHEL/CentOS machine, the output is found in:
 
/var/log/messages

Collecting logs is managed by the rsyslog service. It may be possible, that you have the service turned off for some reason. To start the service, run the following command:

 
systemctl start rsyslog
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