Systemd service unit logs with vi

Using the built-in pager in journalctl is sufficient as long as the relevant information can be easily spotted at the end or beginning of the log file. For instance to check the end of the log journal of a given service unit, we can simply do:

journalctl -e -u example.service

It is even possible to follow the logs in real time:

journalctl -ef -u example.service

However, if you seek an event or error message without a known timestamp, then it is more efficient to use an external such as vi to read and navigate the log journal.

journalctl --no-pager -u example.service | vi -