Bug#805617: systemd: journalctl --system as user: "No journal files were found"

[Andreas Krüger]

Package: systemd
Version: 215-17+deb8u2
Severity: normal

Dear maintainers,

summary: Permission problem with files created
below /var/log/journal, systemd-journal group
cannot read.

Details:

On this Jessie system, as a user that's a member
of the systemd-journal group, I run some
`journalctl --system ...` command and get
the error message `No journal files were found.`.

This is not the behaviour I expect,
as, according to the journalctl manual page,

> ... users who are members of the "systemd-journal"
> group get access to the system journal ...

Doing the same command as root produces the expected output.

This seems to be a permission problem regarding the
files in /var/log/journal (which exists on my machine).

Temporary workaround:

As root, I navigate to /var/log/journal and execute

chgrp systemd-journal */*

Afterwards, the user can run `journalctl --system ...` and get
the expected output.

This workaround will not help in the long run,
as new directories or files are created below /var/log/journal.

Regards, and thank you for providing fine software,

Andreas



-- Package-specific info:

-- System Information:
Debian Release: 8.2
  APT prefers stable-updates
  APT policy: (500, 'stable-updates'), (500, 'stable')
Architecture: amd64 (x86_64)
Foreign Architectures: i386

Kernel: Linux 3.16.0-4-amd64 (SMP w/4 CPU cores)
Locale: LANG=de_DE.UTF-8, LC_CTYPE=de_DE.UTF-8 (charmap=UTF-8)
Shell: /bin/sh linked to /bin/dash
Init: systemd (via /run/systemd/system)

Versions of packages systemd depends on:
ii  acl             2.2.52-2
ii  adduser         3.113+nmu3
ii  initscripts     2.88dsf-59
ii  libacl1         2.2.52-2
ii  libaudit1       1:2.4-1+b1
ii  libblkid1       2.25.2-6
ii  libc6           2.19-18+deb8u1
ii  libcap2         1:2.24-8
ii  libcap2-bin     1:2.24-8
ii  libcryptsetup4  2:1.6.6-5
ii  libgcrypt20     1.6.3-2
ii  libkmod2        18-3
ii  liblzma5        5.1.1alpha+20120614-2+b3
ii  libpam0g        1.1.8-3.1
ii  libselinux1     2.3-2
ii  libsystemd0     215-17+deb8u2
ii  mount           2.25.2-6
ii  sysv-rc         2.88dsf-59
ii  udev            215-17+deb8u2
ii  util-linux      2.25.2-6

Versions of packages systemd recommends:
ii  dbus            1.8.20-0+deb8u1
ii  libpam-systemd  215-17+deb8u2

Versions of packages systemd suggests:
ii  systemd-ui  3-2

-- Configuration Files:
/etc/systemd/journald.conf changed:
[Journal]
ForwardToSyslog=no


-- no debconf information


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