diff --git a/gradle/java-tron.vmoptions b/gradle/java-tron.vmoptions
index cf34689ebdd..3b262167312 100644
--- a/gradle/java-tron.vmoptions
+++ b/gradle/java-tron.vmoptions
@@ -1,6 +1,6 @@
 -XX:+UseConcMarkSweepGC
 -XX:+PrintGCDetails
--Xloggc:./gc.log
+-Xloggc:./logs/gc.log
 -XX:+PrintGCDateStamps
 -XX:+CMSParallelRemarkEnabled
 -XX:ReservedCodeCacheSize=256m
diff --git a/gradle/jdk17/java-tron.vmoptions b/gradle/jdk17/java-tron.vmoptions
index 180ff1aa7c7..456825d42b1 100644
--- a/gradle/jdk17/java-tron.vmoptions
+++ b/gradle/jdk17/java-tron.vmoptions
@@ -1,5 +1,5 @@
 -XX:+UseZGC
--Xlog:gc,gc+heap:file=gc.log:time,tags,level:filecount=10,filesize=100M
+-Xlog:gc,gc+heap:file=./logs/gc.log:time,tags,level:filecount=10,filesize=100M
 -XX:ReservedCodeCacheSize=256m
 -XX:+UseCodeCacheFlushing
 -XX:MetaspaceSize=256m
diff --git a/gradle/unixStartScript.txt b/gradle/unixStartScript.txt
index 585998cb8c9..b9cc7fd1dab 100644
--- a/gradle/unixStartScript.txt
+++ b/gradle/unixStartScript.txt
@@ -50,6 +50,11 @@ APP_BASE_NAME=`basename "\$0"`
 #    JAVA_OPTS='"-Xmx\$MEM" "-Xms\$MEM"'
 #fi
 
+# The GC log configured in java-tron.vmoptions is written under ./logs, next to
+# tron.log. JVM logging is initialised before the application runs, so the
+# directory has to exist by now: on JDK 9+ a missing one aborts startup.
+mkdir -p ./logs
+
 # Add default JVM options here. You can also use JAVA_OPTS and ${optsEnvironmentVar} to pass JVM options to this script.
 DEFAULT_JVM_OPTS=${defaultJvmOpts}
 for line in \$(cat \$APP_HOME/bin/java-tron.vmoptions)