System-wide logging is provided by systemd’s journal, which subsumes traditional logging daemons such as syslogd and klogd. Log entries are kept in binary files in /var/log/journal/. The command journalctl allows you to see the contents of the journal. For example, $ journalctl -b shows all journal entries since the last reboot. (The output of journalctl is piped into less by default.) You can use various options and match operators to restrict output to messages of interest. For instance, to get all messages from PostgreSQL: $ journalctl -u postgresql.service -- Logs begin at Mon, 2013-01-07 13:28:01 CET, end at Tue, 2013-01-08 01:09:57 CET. -- ... Jan 07 15:44:14 hagbard postgres[2681]: [2-1] LOG: database system is shut down -- Reboot -- Jan 07 15:45:10 hagbard postgres[2532]: [1-1] LOG: database system was shut down at 2013-01-07 15:44:14 CET Jan 07 15:45:13 hagbard postgres[2500]: [1-1] LOG: database system is ready to accept connections Or to get all messages since the last reboot that have at least a “critical” severity level: $ journalctl -b -p crit Dec 17 21:08:06 mandark sudo[3673]: pam_unix(sudo:auth): auth could not identify password for [alice] Dec 29 01:30:22 mandark kernel[6131]: [1053513.909444] CPU6: Core temperature above threshold, cpu clock throttled (total events = 1) The system journal is readable by root and by users in the wheel and systemd-journal groups. All users have a private journal that can be read using journalctl.