/var/log/syslog and /var/log/syslog.1 running wild, please help!

S2000fred

10/27/23, 5:31 PM

I don't know what happened but a few days ago my main disk was clogged, when looking around for the culprit, I found out that /var/log directory was over 600Gb, then I discovered that it was /var/log/syslog file that was to blame. Looking around online for a solution, I came across this post on StackOverflow with someone with a similar situation.

https://stackoverflow.com/questions/35638219/ubuntu-large-syslog-and-kern-log-files

I followed the instructions in the first answer, I did steps one and two. The thing is, this is a question about a Ubuntu server creating too many logs and clogging the system, I'm just running the desktop Ubuntu 22.04 LTS.

Anyways, after doing steps 1 and 2, 2 days after, I was back at the beginning. /var/log directory was over 600Gb again. Now it is /var/log/syslog at 550Gb and /var/log/syslog.1 at 110Gb, so I did "> /var/log/syslog" and "> /var/log/syslog.1" so clean up the file.

So I looked online again for a new solution and came across this page where they talk about stopping and disabling logging.

https://stackoverflow.com/questions/17358499/how-to-disable-all-logs

I followed command line 1 and 2 of the best answer to stop and disable the logging.

12 hours later and I'm back at the beginning again.

I have not restarted the system, not sure if any of those steps require restarting the system for it to take effect.

Aside from browsing the web, the only other thing I do on this PC is play games on steam, I did buy a game (X-Plane 11) and installed it about 3 days ago when all this started happening, but I don't think Steam has root access to mess with logs.

I'm hopping someone has come across this problem and found a fix, if not, I'm planning on deleting syslog and syslog.1 files.

I have this message over and over again:

Oct 27 12:09:52 shadowhouse update-notifier-crash[69261]: [69261:69261:0100/000000.143030:ERROR:zygote_linux.cc(240)] Error reading message from browser: Socket operation on non-socket (88)

I suspect it might be a download i started 2-3 days ago,a grand canyon scenery patch for X-plane 11, I'm downloading it as a guest for free, so at the slowest speed. 56.1Gb out of 88.1Gb done, have about 2 days left. I remember when I first ran "> /var/log/syslog", it crashed the download, I restarted it and never happened again. –

0 + 4

log

syslog

Jos

10/27/23, 5:51 PM

Your log files will be filled with millions of identical lines. Tell us what they are, so we can suppress those.

S2000fred

10/27/23, 7:05 PM

I have this message over and over again: "Oct 27 12:09:52 shadowhouse update-notifier-crash[69261]: [69261:69261:0100/000000.143030:ERROR:zygote_linux.cc(240)] Error reading message from browser: Socket operation on non-socket (88)" Error from the Browser, I suspect it might be a download i started 2-3 days ago,a grand canyon scenery patch for X-plane 11, I'm downloading it as a guest for free, so at the slowest speed. 56.1Gb out of 88.1Gb done, have about 2 days left. I remember when I first ran "> /var/log/syslog", it crashed the download, I restarted it and never happened again.

Jos

10/27/23, 7:08 PM

First of all, kill the process: `sudo kill 69261` (unless the process ID changes).

S2000fred

10/28/23, 6:02 AM

That helped, it's been hours and syslog isn't bigger than 15Kb. Not sure what caused it to be logging hundreds of lines a second. About 4-6 months ago, the Brave browser received an update, if I tried to upload a file to a page or download a file, it would freeze the browser. I have two monitors with browsers on each side, it would only freeze on one side and not the other. I did receive a Brave Browser update through Ubuntu's Software Updater 4 days ago, I was able to start downloading stuff without the browser crashing which surprised me, maybe there are still bugs for Brave to iron out.

Elon Musk

I sit in a Tesla and translated this thread with Ai:

EN: /var/log/syslog and /var/log/syslog.1 running wild, please help!

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