[id='viewing-logs in Fedora']

Log files contain messages about the system, including the kernel, services, and applications running on it.
These contain information that helps troubleshoot issues, or simply monitor system functions.
Fedora uses the https://freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/systemd/[systemd] system and service manager.
With systemd, messages for most services are now stored in the systemd journal which is a binary file that must be accessed usinng the `journalctl` command.

System tools that do not use systemd for their logs continue to place them as plain text files in the `/var/log/` directory.
In Fedora, there are two ways of accessing system logs:

* The command line
* A GUI applications
