sd_journal_open(3) — Linux manual page

NAME | SYNOPSIS | DESCRIPTION | RETURN VALUE | NOTES | HISTORY | SEE ALSO | COLOPHON

SD_JOURNAL_OPEN(3)           sd_journal_open          SD_JOURNAL_OPEN(3)

NAME         top

       sd_journal_open, sd_journal_open_directory,
       sd_journal_open_directory_fd, sd_journal_open_files,
       sd_journal_open_files_fd, sd_journal_open_namespace,
       sd_journal_close, sd_journal, SD_JOURNAL_LOCAL_ONLY,
       SD_JOURNAL_RUNTIME_ONLY, SD_JOURNAL_SYSTEM,
       SD_JOURNAL_CURRENT_USER, SD_JOURNAL_OS_ROOT,
       SD_JOURNAL_ALL_NAMESPACES, SD_JOURNAL_INCLUDE_DEFAULT_NAMESPACE,
       SD_JOURNAL_TAKE_DIRECTORY_FD - Open the system journal for
       reading

SYNOPSIS         top

       #include <systemd/sd-journal.h>

       int sd_journal_open(sd_journal **ret, int flags);

       int sd_journal_open_namespace(sd_journal **ret,
                                     const char *namespace, int flags);

       int sd_journal_open_directory(sd_journal **ret, const char *path,
                                     int flags);

       int sd_journal_open_directory_fd(sd_journal **ret, int fd,
                                        int flags);

       int sd_journal_open_files(sd_journal **ret, const char **paths,
                                 int flags);

       int sd_journal_open_files_fd(sd_journal **ret, int fds[],
                                    unsigned n_fds, int flags);

       void sd_journal_close(sd_journal *j);

DESCRIPTION         top

       sd_journal_open() opens the log journal for reading. It will find
       all journal files automatically and interleave them automatically
       when reading. As first argument it takes a pointer to a
       sd_journal pointer, which, on success, will contain a journal
       context object. The second argument is a flags field, which may
       consist of the following flags ORed together:
       SD_JOURNAL_LOCAL_ONLY makes sure only journal files generated on
       the local machine will be opened.  SD_JOURNAL_RUNTIME_ONLY makes
       sure only volatile journal files will be opened, excluding those
       which are stored on persistent storage.  SD_JOURNAL_SYSTEM will
       cause journal files of system services and the kernel (in
       opposition to user session processes) to be opened.
       SD_JOURNAL_CURRENT_USER will cause journal files of the current
       user to be opened. If neither SD_JOURNAL_SYSTEM nor
       SD_JOURNAL_CURRENT_USER are specified, all journal file types
       will be opened.

       sd_journal_open_namespace() is similar to sd_journal_open() but
       takes an additional namespace parameter that specifies which
       journal namespace to operate on. If specified as NULL the call is
       identical to sd_journal_open(). If non-NULL only data from the
       namespace identified by the specified parameter is accessed. This
       call understands two additional flags: if
       SD_JOURNAL_ALL_NAMESPACES is specified the namespace parameter is
       ignored and all defined namespaces are accessed simultaneously;
       if SD_JOURNAL_INCLUDE_DEFAULT_NAMESPACE the specified namespace
       and the default namespace are accessed but no others (this flag
       has no effect when namespace is passed as NULL). For details
       about journal namespaces see systemd-journald.service(8).

       sd_journal_open_directory() is similar to sd_journal_open() but
       takes an absolute directory path as argument. All journal files
       in this directory will be opened and interleaved automatically.
       This call also takes a flags argument. The flags parameters
       accepted by this call are SD_JOURNAL_OS_ROOT, SD_JOURNAL_SYSTEM,
       and SD_JOURNAL_CURRENT_USER. If SD_JOURNAL_OS_ROOT is specified,
       journal files are searched for below the usual /var/log/journal
       and /run/log/journal relative to the specified path, instead of
       directly beneath it. The other two flags limit which files are
       opened, the same as for sd_journal_open().

       sd_journal_open_directory_fd() is similar to
       sd_journal_open_directory(), but takes a file descriptor
       referencing a directory in the file system instead of an absolute
       file system path. In addition to the flags accepted by
       sd_journal_open_directory(), this function also accepts
       SD_JOURNAL_TAKE_DIRECTORY_FD. If SD_JOURNAL_TAKE_DIRECTORY_FD is
       specified, the function will take the ownership of the specified
       file descriptor on success, and it will be closed by
       sd_journal_close(), hence the caller of the function must not
       close the file descriptor. When the flag is not specified,
       sd_journal_close() will not close the file descriptor, so the
       caller should close it after sd_journal_close().

       sd_journal_open_files() is similar to sd_journal_open() but takes
       a NULL-terminated list of file paths to open. All files will be
       opened and interleaved automatically. This call also takes a
       flags argument, but it must be passed as 0 as no flags are
       currently understood for this call. Please note that in the case
       of a live journal, this function is only useful for debugging,
       because individual journal files can be rotated at any moment,
       and the opening of specific files is inherently racy.

       sd_journal_open_files_fd() is similar to sd_journal_open_files()
       but takes an array of open file descriptors that must reference
       journal files, instead of an array of file system paths. Pass the
       array of file descriptors as second argument, and the number of
       array entries in the third. The flags parameter must be passed as
       0.

       sd_journal objects cannot be used in the child after a fork.
       Functions which take a journal object as an argument
       (sd_journal_next() and others) will return -ECHILD after a fork.

       sd_journal_close() will close the journal context allocated with
       sd_journal_open() or sd_journal_open_directory() and free its
       resources.

       When opening the journal only journal files accessible to the
       calling user will be opened. If journal files are not accessible
       to the caller, this will be silently ignored.

       See sd_journal_next(3) for an example of how to iterate through
       the journal after opening it with sd_journal_open().

       A journal context object returned by sd_journal_open() references
       a specific journal entry as current entry, similar to a file seek
       index in a classic file system file, but without absolute
       positions. It may be altered with sd_journal_next(3) and
       sd_journal_seek_head(3) and related calls. The current entry
       position may be exported in cursor strings, as accessible via
       sd_journal_get_cursor(3). Cursor strings may be used to globally
       identify a specific journal entry in a stable way and then later
       to seek to it (or if the specific entry is not available locally,
       to its closest entry in time) sd_journal_seek_cursor(3).

       Notification of journal changes is available via
       sd_journal_get_fd() and related calls.

RETURN VALUE         top

       The sd_journal_open(), sd_journal_open_directory(), and
       sd_journal_open_files() calls return 0 on success or a negative
       errno-style error code.  sd_journal_close() returns nothing.

NOTES         top

       All functions listed here are thread-agnostic and only a single
       specific thread may operate on a given object during its entire
       lifetime. It's safe to allocate multiple independent objects and
       use each from a specific thread in parallel. However, it's not
       safe to allocate such an object in one thread, and operate or
       free it from any other, even if locking is used to ensure these
       threads don't operate on it at the very same time.

       Functions described here are available as a shared library, which
       can be compiled against and linked to with the
       libsystemd pkg-config(1) file.

HISTORY         top

       sd_journal_open(), sd_journal_open_directory(), and
       sd_journal_close() were added in version 187.

       sd_journal_open_files() was added in version 205.

       sd_journal_open_directory_fd() and sd_journal_open_files_fd()
       were added in version 230.

       sd_journal_open_namespace() was added in version 245.

SEE ALSO         top

       systemd(1), sd-journal(3), systemd-journald.service(8),
       sd_journal_next(3), sd_journal_get_data(3)

COLOPHON         top

       This page is part of the systemd (systemd system and service
       manager) project.  Information about the project can be found at
       ⟨http://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/systemd⟩.  If you have
       a bug report for this manual page, see
       ⟨http://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/systemd/#bugreports⟩.
       This page was obtained from the project's upstream Git repository
       ⟨https://github.com/systemd/systemd.git⟩ on 2023-12-22.  (At that
       time, the date of the most recent commit that was found in the
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       corrections or improvements to the information in this COLOPHON
       (which is not part of the original manual page), send a mail to
       man-pages@man7.org

systemd 255                                           SD_JOURNAL_OPEN(3)

Pages that refer to this page: sd-journal(3)sd_journal_add_match(3)sd_journal_enumerate_fields(3)sd_journal_get_catalog(3)sd_journal_get_cursor(3)sd_journal_get_cutoff_realtime_usec(3)sd_journal_get_data(3)sd_journal_get_fd(3)sd_journal_get_realtime_usec(3)sd_journal_get_seqnum(3)sd_journal_get_usage(3)sd_journal_next(3)sd_journal_query_unique(3)sd_journal_seek_head(3)systemd.directives(7)systemd.index(7)