Memory leak in systemd-journald

[Paul]

systemd-journald has 144 MiB resident after 35 days. After a reboot this drops to 23 MiB. All logging config is stock except that logs rotate monthly, and the machine is not used as a syslog server.

This is a very lightly loaded web and mail server, < 10 requests per hour. /var/log/journal/.../system.journal grows by 10-15 MiB per day, mostly logging automated attacks against SSH, SMTP, and random ports.

The journal daemon uses more memory than all other daemons combined. I sure hope this is a leak and not by design ...

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 18.04
Package: systemd 237-3ubuntu10.3
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 4.15.0-24.26-generic 4.15.18
Uname: Linux 4.15.0-24-generic x86_64
ApportVersion: 2.20.9-0ubuntu7.2
Architecture: amd64
Date: Mon Aug 6 22:54:34 2018
Lsusb: Bus 001 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
MachineType: DigitalOcean Droplet
ProcKernelCmdLine: BOOT_IMAGE=/boot/vmlinuz-4.15.0-24-generic root=UUID=5de0cac7-17b6-4a0f-8715-54cfaaa0a9a9 ro console=tty1 console=ttyS0
SourcePackage: systemd
UpgradeStatus: No upgrade log present (probably fresh install)
dmi.bios.date: 12/12/2017
dmi.bios.vendor: DigitalOcean
dmi.bios.version: 20171212
dmi.chassis.type: 1
dmi.chassis.vendor: Bochs
dmi.modalias: dmi:bvnDigitalOcean:bvr20171212:bd12/12/2017:svnDigitalOcean:pnDroplet:pvr20171212:cvnBochs:ct1:cvr:
dmi.product.family: DigitalOcean_Droplet
dmi.product.name: Droplet
dmi.product.version: 20171212
dmi.sys.vendor: DigitalOcean

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

Status changed to 'Confirmed' because the bug affects multiple users.

[Dimitri John Ledkov (xnox)]

$ systemctl status systemd-journald
   Memory: 37.4M

$ uptime
 16:35:16 up 6 days, 22:51, 1 user, load average: 1.82, 3.04, 2.81

$ systemctl restart systemd-journald

$ systemctl status systemd-journald
   Memory: 1.7M

journalctl --flush does not help

[Balint Reczey (rbalint)]

There was a recent fix which is eoan and later:
https://github.com/systemd/systemd/issues/11502

Is there anyone seeing the issue in 19.04 or 20.04?

[Brian Murray (brian-murray)]

The Eoan Ermine has reached end of life, so this bug will not be fixed for that release

[Dan Streetman (ddstreet)]

please reopen if this is still an issue