Systemd logs I check first

Flybug7/6/26Less than 1 minute

journalctl is one of the fastest ways to understand what a small server is doing.

Recent service logs

journalctl -u my-service --since "30 minutes ago" --no-pager

That usually answers whether the service failed once, failed repeatedly, or never started at all.

journalctl -b -u my-service --no-pager

Boot logs are useful after a reboot because they remove old noise from previous runs.

journalctl -fu my-service

I use follow mode while restarting or testing a service, then stop it once the behavior is clear.