QJournalctl v0.6.3

A Qt-based Graphical User Interface for systemd's journalctl command

Table of Contents

• About QJournalctl
• QJournalctl for Linux
• QJournalctl for macOS
• QJournalctl for Windows
• Screenshots

About QJournalctl

systemd provides journalctl to display and analyze its journal. Think of the journal as a giant log file for the whole system. Different programs (like e.g. different software/services on your system, but also the kernel) write their log entries into systemd's journal. journalctl supports a few flags/parameters to specify what should be displayed. QJournalctl is just a graphical user interface which displays the journal and lets the user simply change the parameters to check the log quickly for specific reports or errors.

Maybe you want to checkout the Changelog.

QJournalctl for Linux

ArchLinux and Manjaro

QJournalctl is available in the community repository of Archlinux and Manjaro:

sudo pacman -S qjournalctl

For other distributions, it is at the moment required to build it from sources.

General build dependencies

• Make sure your compiler supports (at least) C++11 (E.g. g++ ≥ 4.8.1, clang ≥ 3.3)
• QJournalctl relies on Qt5, please ensure to have the Qt5 development libraries installed, when compiling! (E.g. qtbase5-dev for Debian/Ubuntu; on macOS these come with the qt Homebrew tap)
• To access remote hosts QJournalctl heavily relies on libssh ≥ 0.8.7

How to install build dependencies (on Debian-based distributions)

Your distribution's supplied version of libssh might be too old for a successful build. You need to build and install libssh yourself (< 2 minutes!)

sudo apt-get install qtbase5-dev cmake libssl-dev pkg-config

wget https://www.libssh.org/files/0.9/libssh-0.9.5.tar.xz

tar xf libssh-0.9.5.tar.xz ; cd libssh-0.9.5

mkdir build ; cd build

cmake .. && sudo make install

cd ../..

How to build and install QJournalctl

1. Download the source code and extract it (or use git clone https://github.com/pentix/qjournalctl.git)
2. Run ./autogen.sh
3. Run make -j$(nproc) to compile qjournalctl
4. Run sudo make install

QJournalctl for macOS

Build dependencies

To handle dependencies of macOS, we're going to use homebrew. brew install qt libssh As indicated in the caveats:

qt is keg-only, which means it was not symlinked into /usr/local,
because Qt 5 has CMake issues when linked.

If you need to have qt first in your PATH run:
  echo 'export PATH="/usr/local/opt/qt/bin:$PATH"' >> /Users/user_name/.bash_profile

before building QJournalctl you'll indeed need to run: export PATH="/usr/local/opt/qt/bin:$PATH" (no need to make it persistent by using .bash_profile)

How to build and install QJournalctl

1. Download the source code and extract it (or use git clone https://github.com/pentix/qjournalctl.git)
2. Run ./autogen.sh
3. Run make -j$(nproc) to compile qjournalctl
4. Run sudo make install

QJournalctl for Windows

Build dependencies

To build QJournalctl for Windows, it is needed

• MSVC 2017 C++ Build Tools for x64/x86 (>= v141). They are part of the Microsoft Visual Studio Community 2017 and can be also installed in the version 2019 (https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/cpp/build/vscpp-step-0-installation?view=vs-2019)
• Qt >= 5.13.2
• vcpkg >= 2020.01 (https://github.com/microsoft/vcpkg)

Installing vcpkg

1. Checkout the vcpkg github repository within the folder of the qjournalctl repository (<qjournalctlfoldr>/vcpkg/) from https://github.com/microsoft/vcpkg
2. Open a cmd and go to <qjournalctlfoldr>/vcpkg/
3. run ./bootstrap-vcpkg.bat. With this, you will get vcpkg ready to be used

Install the QJournalctl dependencies

QJournalctl is based on libssh. It is possible to obtain it using vcpkg:

1. Navigate to the vcpkg folder (<qjournalctlfoldr>/vcpkg/)
2. Get the libssh dependencies for the target needed:

vcpkg install libssh:x64-windows

Now, the libssh binaries as well as its dependencies can be found at <repository_root>/vcpkg/packages/

Building QJournalctl

It is possible to build QJournalctl using two different manners

• Using QtCreator.
• Using the autogen_and_build.bat script.

Build using autogen_and_build.bat

Considering that the Install the QJournalctl Dependencies steps are already performed, first adjust autogen_and_build.bat with your own paths

• Set the value of ARCH to either x86 to compile for a x86 32 bit target or to x86_64 for a x86 64 bit target
• Modify the variable VCPKG_INSTALL_FOLDER defined in the autogen_and_build.bat with the path where you have vcpkg, (i.e. set VCPKG_INSTALL_FOLDER= <yourqjournalctlrepopath>\vcpkg)
• Modify the path where Qt for the given toolchain path is found (QTDIR may be for instance C:\Qt\Qt5.14.1\5.14.1\msvc2017_64)
• Run autogen_and_build.bat. The application can be found at release/ folder.

Build using QtCreator

First, it is needed to configure QtCreator by enabling the MSVC toolchain. Configure it for 32 and 64 bit, release and debug by navigating to Projects > Manage Kits > add ...

Once it is set up

• Click in the "screen" icon and select the MSVC 2017 64 bit release configuration
• Now, Start the build process using Build > Build project "qjournalctl"

Screenshots

Use the ssh feature to connect to remote hosts and read their logs; Save frequently used connections and benefit from password or (encrypted) keyfile support

Use the filter option and regular expressions to find what you are looking for

Finally found the interesting log entries? Directly export your selection!

Search the journal while it keeps itself up-to-date

The current boot is not enough? Search the entire (!) journal of all boots or select a previous boot