The journald system includes the capability of compressing overly large files to avoid filling up the system with logs or making the logs unmanageably large. Rationale: Uncompressed large files may unexpectedly fill a filesystem leading to resource unavailability. Compressing logs prior to write can prevent sudden, unexpected filesystem impacts.
Solution
Edit the /etc/systemd/journald.conf file and add the following line: Compress=yes Reload the configuration to be effective. # systemctl force-reload systemd-journald /etc is stateless on Container-Optimized OS. Therefore, /etc cannot be used to make these changes persistent across reboots. The steps mentioned above needs to be performed after every boot.