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Amazon CloudWatch Agent Now Supports Direct Journald Log Collection

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The Amazon CloudWatch agent now supports direct collection of systemd journal (journald) logs from Linux instances. This eliminates the need to first write these logs to disk files, streamlining log ingestion for modern Linux distributions that primarily use journald. The new capability preserves structured metadata from journald, enabling granular filtering by systemd unit, priority, and process information to optimize log volume and costs. This feature is available in all AWS Commercial and GovCloud(US) regions and requires updating to the latest CloudWatch agent version.

Features (1)
  • Direct Journald Log Collection

    The Amazon CloudWatch agent now supports native collection of systemd journal (journald) logs from Linux instances, eliminating the need to write them to disk first. This preserves structured metadata, enabling advanced filtering by systemd units, priority levels, and fields, which helps reduce log noise and control costs.

Read the original announcement →

https://aws.amazon.com/about-aws/whats-new/2026/08/amazon-cloudwatch-agent-journald/

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