diff --git a/nixos/modules/system/boot/systemd.nix b/nixos/modules/system/boot/systemd.nix
index 441faa03af00..4019af63ad35 100644
--- a/nixos/modules/system/boot/systemd.nix
+++ b/nixos/modules/system/boot/systemd.nix
@@ -1224,6 +1224,7 @@ in
         keep = 1;
         extraConfig = ''
           create 0660 root ${config.users.groups.utmp.name}
+          minsize 1M
         '';
       };
       "/var/log/wtmp" = mapAttrs (_: mkDefault) {
@@ -1231,6 +1232,7 @@ in
         keep = 1;
         extraConfig = ''
           create 0664 root ${config.users.groups.utmp.name}
+          minsize 1M
         '';
       };
     };
diff --git a/nixos/tests/logrotate.nix b/nixos/tests/logrotate.nix
index 0f6b59f071d4..5a724d9d6e94 100644
--- a/nixos/tests/logrotate.nix
+++ b/nixos/tests/logrotate.nix
@@ -19,7 +19,8 @@ import ./make-test-python.nix ({ pkgs, ...} : rec {
 
               # wtmp is present in default config.
               "rm -f /var/log/wtmp*",
-              "echo test > /var/log/wtmp",
+              # we need to give it at least 1MB
+              "dd if=/dev/zero of=/var/log/wtmp bs=2M count=1",
 
               # move into the future and rotate
               "date -s 'now + 1 month + 1 day'",