Ubuntu – How to disable the log files

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To be specific I want to stop the kern.log and syslog files. I just installed Xunbuntu about 2 days ago and have no experience with this OS.

I know they are supposedly important, but I have a hardware issue that leaves them running into the gigabytes.

My partition is small so I don't have a whole lot of free space for these files. In addition Im running Xunbuntu on a SSD so all this writing to the disk is annoying me. So if I could prevent their creation, that would be great.

For the curious that must know the issue. Im getting a nonstop log entry along the lines of "iwl3945…Radio disabled by HW RF Kill switch"

Everything is operating fine. LAN, WiFi, and Bluetooth all work as they should. The log entries begin when I don't have a CAT5 cable connected or if I set the wifi hardware switch to the off position. And even when I do have them connected I have to enter a web browser before they acknowledge and verify a connection to the internet before the writing stops.

I can't have an always online connection with this computer. It will probably spend more time offline. I also like to turn off the wifi hard switch to conserve battery.

Best Answer

If you really want to disable all logging:

  1. Type sudo stop rsyslog to stop the log daemon.

  2. Create a file called /etc/init/rsyslog.override with a single line manual to stop the log daemon being automatically started at boot. You can do this with the following command:

    echo manual|sudo tee --append /etc/init/rsyslog.override

If you ever want to undo this:

  1. Type sudo start rsyslog to start the log daemon.
  2. Delete the override file you created before, so that the log daemon is again started at boot. The command sudo rm -f /etc/init/rsyslog.override will do this for you.
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