SYSTEMD.JOURNAL-FIELDS(7) systemd.journal-fields SYSTEMD.JOURNAL-FIELDS(7)
NAME
systemd.journal-fields - Special journal fields
DESCRIPTION
Entries in the journal resemble an environment block in their syntax but with fields that can include binary data. Primarily, fields are
formatted UTF-8 text strings, and binary formatting 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 meaning. All fields with special meanings are optional. In some cases,
fields may appear more than once per entry.
USER JOURNAL FIELDS
User fields are fields that are directly passed from clients and stored in the journal.
MESSAGE=
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.
MESSAGE_ID=
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 journalctl --new-id128.
PRIORITY=
A priority value between 0 ("emerg") and 7 ("debug") formatted as a decimal string. This field is compatible with syslog's priority
concept.
CODE_FILE=, CODE_LINE=, CODE_FUNC=
The code location generating this message, if known. Contains the source filename, the line number and the function name.
ERRNO=
The low-level Unix error number causing this entry, if any. Contains the numeric value of errno(3) formatted as a decimal string.
SYSLOG_FACILITY=, SYSLOG_IDENTIFIER=, SYSLOG_PID=
Syslog compatibility fields containing the facility (formatted as decimal string), the identifier string (i.e. "tag"), and the client
PID. (Note that the tag is usually derived from glibc's program_invocation_short_name variable, see program_invocation_short_name(3).)
TRUSTED JOURNAL FIELDS
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.
_PID=, _UID=, _GID=
The process, user, and group ID of the process the journal entry originates from formatted as a decimal string. Note that entries
obtained via "stdout" or "stderr" of forked processes will contain credentials valid for a parent process (that initiated the
connection to systemd-journald).
_COMM=, _EXE=, _CMDLINE=
The name, the executable path, and the command line of the process the journal entry originates from.
_CAP_EFFECTIVE=
The effective capabilities(7) of the process the journal entry originates from.
_AUDIT_SESSION=, _AUDIT_LOGINUID=
The session and login UID of the process the journal entry originates from, as maintained by the kernel audit subsystem.
_SYSTEMD_CGROUP=, _SYSTEMD_SLICE=, _SYSTEMD_UNIT=, _SYSTEMD_USER_UNIT=, _SYSTEMD_SESSION=, _SYSTEMD_OWNER_UID=
The control group path in the systemd hierarchy, the 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.
_SELINUX_CONTEXT=
The SELinux security context (label) of the process the journal entry originates from.
_SOURCE_REALTIME_TIMESTAMP=
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.
_BOOT_ID=
The kernel boot ID for the boot the message was generated in, formatted as a 128-bit hexadecimal string.
_MACHINE_ID=
The machine ID of the originating host, as available in machine-id(5).
_SYSTEMD_INVOCATION_ID=
The invocation ID for the runtime cycle of the unit the message was generated in, as available to processes of the unit in
$INVOCATION_ID (see systemd.exec(5)).
_HOSTNAME=
The name of the originating host.
_TRANSPORT=
How the entry was received by the journal service. Valid transports are:
audit
for those read from the kernel audit subsystem
driver
for internally generated messages
syslog
for those received via the local syslog socket with the syslog protocol
journal
for those received via the native journal protocol
stdout
for those read from a service's standard output or error output
kernel
for those read from the kernel
_STREAM_ID=
Only applies to "_TRANSPORT=stdout" 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.
_LINE_BREAK=
Only applies to "_TRANSPORT=stdout" records: indicates that the log message in the standard output/error stream was not terminated with
a normal newline character ("
", i.e. ASCII 10). Specifically, when set this field is one of nul (in case the line was terminated by a
NUL byte), line-max (in case the maximum log line length was reached, as configured with LineMax= in journald.conf(5)) or eof (if this
was the last log record of a stream and the stream ended without a final newline character). Note that this record is not generated
when a normal newline character was used for marking the log line end.
KERNEL JOURNAL FIELDS
Kernel fields are fields that are used by messages originating in the kernel and stored in the journal.
_KERNEL_DEVICE=
The kernel device name. If the entry is associated to a block device, the major and minor of the device node, separated by ":" and
prefixed by "b". Similar for character devices but prefixed by "c". For network devices, this is the interface index prefixed by "n".
For all other devices, this is the subsystem name prefixed by "+", followed by ":", followed by the kernel device name.
_KERNEL_SUBSYSTEM=
The kernel subsystem name.
_UDEV_SYSNAME=
The kernel device name as it shows up in the device tree below /sys.
_UDEV_DEVNODE=
The device node path of this device in /dev.
_UDEV_DEVLINK=
Additional symlink names pointing to the device node in /dev. This field is frequently set more than once per entry.
FIELDS TO LOG ON BEHALF OF A DIFFERENT PROGRAM
Fields in this section are used by programs to specify that they are logging on behalf of another program or unit.
Fields used by the systemd-coredump coredump kernel helper:
COREDUMP_UNIT=, COREDUMP_USER_UNIT=
Used to annotate messages containing coredumps from system and session units. See coredumpctl(1).
Privileged programs (currently UID 0) may attach OBJECT_PID= to a message. This will instruct systemd-journald to attach additional fields
on behalf of the caller:
OBJECT_PID=PID
PID of the program that this message pertains to.
OBJECT_UID=, OBJECT_GID=, OBJECT_COMM=, OBJECT_EXE=, OBJECT_CMDLINE=, OBJECT_AUDIT_SESSION=, OBJECT_AUDIT_LOGINUID=,
OBJECT_SYSTEMD_CGROUP=, OBJECT_SYSTEMD_SESSION=, OBJECT_SYSTEMD_OWNER_UID=, OBJECT_SYSTEMD_UNIT=, OBJECT_SYSTEMD_USER_UNIT=
These are additional fields added automatically by systemd-journald. Their meaning is the same as _UID=, _GID=, _COMM=, _EXE=,
_CMDLINE=, _AUDIT_SESSION=, _AUDIT_LOGINUID=, _SYSTEMD_CGROUP=, _SYSTEMD_SESSION=, _SYSTEMD_UNIT=, _SYSTEMD_USER_UNIT=, and
_SYSTEMD_OWNER_UID= as described above, except that the process identified by PID is described, instead of the process which logged the
message.
ADDRESS FIELDS
During serialization into external formats, such as the Journal Export Format[1] or the Journal JSON Format[2], 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 sd_journal_send(3). They may
also not be used as matches for sd_journal_add_match(3)
__CURSOR=
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.
__REALTIME_TIMESTAMP=
The wallclock time (CLOCK_REALTIME) 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 "_SOURCE_REALTIME_TIMESTAMP=", as it is usually a bit later but more
likely to be monotonic.
__MONOTONIC_TIMESTAMP=
The monotonic time (CLOCK_MONOTONIC) 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 "_BOOT_ID=".
SEE ALSO
systemd(1), journalctl(1), journald.conf(5), sd-journal(3), coredumpctl(1), systemd.directives(7)
NOTES
1. Journal Export Format
https://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/systemd/export
2. Journal JSON Format
https://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/systemd/json
systemd 237 SYSTEMD.JOURNAL-FIELDS(7)