Questions tagged [tail]

Output the last part of files.

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110 votes
10 answers
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How to display certain lines from a text file in Linux?

I guess everyone knows the useful Linux cmd line utilities head and tail. head allows you to print the first X lines of a file, tail does the same but prints the end of the file. What is a good ...
Boaz's user avatar
  • 2,259
53 votes
12 answers
32k views

Tail multiple remote files

Is there a way to remote tail 2 files? I have two servers(a and b) behind a load balancer and I would like to do something like this if possible: tail -f admin@serverA:~/mylogs/log admin@serverB:~/...
Pablo Fernandez's user avatar
42 votes
4 answers
39k views

In tail -f, how do I filter out stuff that has certain keywords?

I want to tail -f my logs. However, I want to filter out everything that has the words: "ELB", "Pingdom", "Health"
Alex's user avatar
  • 8,591
40 votes
8 answers
33k views

Colorize Monitoring of Logs

I sometimes monitor apache and php error logs using tail under FreeBSD. Is there any way to get colorized output, either using tail or some other command line app? Alternatively, what is your ...
Ian's user avatar
  • 1,518
30 votes
10 answers
48k views

Convenient Windows equivalent to tail -f logfile?

Is there some convenient alternative to this on Windows? I always miss this away from Linux. And no I don't consider Cygwin or some other bash port to be "convenient". :) Either a small app that'll ...
cletus's user avatar
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24 votes
7 answers
15k views

Continuously monitor logs with tail that are occasionally rotated

We're using tail to continuously monitor several logs, but when a log is rotated the tail for that file will cease. As far as I understand, the problem is that when the log is rotated, there is a new ...
xkcd150's user avatar
  • 928
15 votes
4 answers
12k views

`tail -f` sometimes stops updating - and the file hasn't moved

I have noticed recently that sometimes tail -f <logfile> will stop updating to the screen. Doing a Ctrl>-C and restarting the tail works fine, though. And I checked to make sure the logfile ...
warren's user avatar
  • 18.7k
15 votes
2 answers
2k views

Bash Prompt Below Output - Background Log Tail

I used to work for a company who had a customised shell for management of one of their products that was running on Linux and I'm looking to replicate a key feature of this shell. All the work was ...
iamacarpet's user avatar
13 votes
4 answers
14k views

How to watch for count of new lines in tail

I want to do something like this: watch tail -f | wc -l #=> 43 #=> 56 #=> 61 #=> 44 #=> ... It counts new lines of tail each second / Linux, CentOs To be more clear. I have got ...
fl00r's user avatar
  • 575
12 votes
4 answers
9k views

Is is possible to filter the output of tail?

I'd like to tail a file but only output lines that have a certain string in them. Is this possible?
Abe Miessler's user avatar
10 votes
9 answers
19k views

Colour tail of Apache logs

Monitoring apache logs with tail –f tends gets very frustrating for the eyes after a while. Are there any tool/options to colorize the log outputs? Maybe signal FATAL with red, etc...
Cherian's user avatar
  • 791
10 votes
7 answers
8k views

Tail -f on new files

Is there a way to do something like this: tail -f logs/ and make the stdout to be updated on every line added to each file already present in logs/ and to every file that will be created in logs/ ...
Jack's user avatar
  • 535
9 votes
5 answers
1k views

Adding tail behaviour where enter adds blank lines to less

I love less, which I can use to follow logs with the +F flag (or the ShiftF hotkey), search forwards and backwards, and generally move freely through the document. But there is one thing missing in ...
blueFast's user avatar
  • 4,330
9 votes
5 answers
6k views

Is there a `tail -f` equivalent for when a file is overwritten (instead of appended to)?

How do continuously monitor a file that is being continuously overwritten? Specifically, the file contains a single line of text which a background process is repeatedly opening and re-writing. I ...
Daryl Spitzer's user avatar
8 votes
2 answers
2k views

Tail server logs into XMPP?

So I have two files, and if a new line appears on either of these files, I'd like to receive an IM (preferably jabber or gTalk) containing the contents of that line. Do you guys have any suggestions ...
icco's user avatar
  • 193
8 votes
2 answers
6k views

Use local tools to monitor remote logs

I don't have root access on my hosted web server, but I would like to use tools like MultiTail to monitor log files that are generated on my web host. Is there a way I can pipe the log output on my ...
Ian's user avatar
  • 1,518
8 votes
2 answers
7k views

tail -f not following log file in Docker container

I am seeing some strange behavior running the tail -f command inside a Docker container in CoreOS. There are a number of variables I can think of that may be contributing to the problem but I am not ...
jmreicha's user avatar
  • 790
7 votes
1 answer
972 views

screen causes "tail -F | grep" to echo unmatched lines

This is Ubuntu (3.13.0-29-generic #53), trying to do a simple bash script to monitor a log file for matching lines. If I do the following, there is no output in the bash shell except for matches, ...
Dale Mahalko's user avatar
7 votes
1 answer
1k views

How to get "tail -f" working on a file located on a Windows share

I'm using a Mac and I have mounted a Windows network disk in my file system using "Connect to Server" in the Finder. In the terminal when i do tail -f on a log file located on said network disk, tail ...
Jörgen Lundberg's user avatar
6 votes
5 answers
8k views

tail all log files in a directory | exclude zipped files

Im trying to find the right command to tail a bunch of log files whilst excluding the zipped files in a set directory. The log files are being zipped as they become oversized. At the moment Im using: ...
JackalopeZero's user avatar
6 votes
3 answers
15k views

tail -f : `tail: logfile.log: file truncated`

I was watching a log file (logfile.log) with tail -f, and after a few minutes, the following message was written to the file: tail: logfile.log: file truncated I've never seen that before and I'm ...
bricker's user avatar
  • 167
6 votes
0 answers
3k views

Log file rotation and "tail -f"

I use log4j to create rolling log files from my program. It writes to a log file until it reaches 256mb, and then it renames all the log files and creates a new log file and continues logging. It is ...
DivideByHero's user avatar
5 votes
3 answers
3k views

Can putty beep when tailing a log file?

I have a putty session tailing a log. I either keep flipping to it to see in anything has come up or I forget to check it at all. Can putty or tail be made to "beep" if anything scrolls into the ...
eflat's user avatar
  • 173
5 votes
2 answers
3k views

tail -f without the tail?

Is there a command in Solaris to read a file, and when it gets to the end to stream the way tail does? I need to read the file from the start, and it is a binary file. Information on Solaris and ...
700 Software's user avatar
  • 2,273
5 votes
3 answers
10k views

Tail a file from ssh and mirror to a local file

To tail a file over ssh, I can use ssh -t remotebox "tail -f /var/log/remote.log" However, it is possible to sync the tail with a local file? So a file automatically mirror the update of the tail ...
Howard's user avatar
  • 2,175
5 votes
3 answers
11k views

tail: inotify cannot be used, reverting to polling: Too many open files

tail: inotify cannot be used, reverting to polling: Too many open files I'm running apache and tomcat servers on Ubuntu (AWS ec2). Whenever I try to tail the catalina.out of tomcat I get too many ...
user23577's user avatar
5 votes
5 answers
9k views

Can I tail an http resource?

Is there a way to tail a resource such as http://someserver.com/logs/server.log ? This is what I would do for a local file. tail -F /var/logs/somefile.log I would like something similar to that for ...
Rythmic's user avatar
  • 151
4 votes
6 answers
8k views

"watching" a log on FreeBSD vs Linux

On Linux systems I can watch -n1 tail /var/log/whatever.log or watch -n1 grep somestuff /var/log/whatever.log To show updates to a log every 1 seconds. On FreeBSD however, the watch command does ...
Cory J's user avatar
  • 1,588
4 votes
3 answers
14k views

How to truncate the log file size without losing recent logs?

I want to reduce the log file size to the particular minimum size I tried the truncate command as below $ truncate -s 20M log filename But when I check the truncated file it truncates the recent logs ...
jayaprakash R's user avatar
4 votes
3 answers
2k views

Monitor multiple Linux log files in real time

I'm debugging a Linux application that allows remote jobs to be submitted, logging the output from each job in a new file. The log file paths conform to: /joblogs/job_*/JOB.LOG where the wild card ...
gareth_bowles's user avatar
3 votes
2 answers
9k views

Tail, grep and count the instances found in one command?

I am tailing a files output and grepping for lines with certain data. I don't want to output the data to the screen but instead count the number of instances it found and send that to the screen. The ...
user53029's user avatar
  • 649
3 votes
4 answers
1k views

Searching for a tail tool for Linux to colorize and suppress lines by regx?

Is there any tool that does both, colorize and filtering lines to suppress form output by regex?
user avatar
3 votes
1 answer
2k views

Continuously tailing a rotating log file with date and time in filename

I have a log file in format log_name_YY-MM-DD_HH_mm.log. The log rotates every couple of hours and the new log is created containing the date and time of it's creation. Sometimes I need to tail the ...
CyberMuz's user avatar
  • 355
3 votes
2 answers
2k views

Countinuous processing of tail -f output [closed]

I have a file where numbers are continuously appended: 1 2 3 4 I want to calculate their mean, also continuously, i.e.: 1 1.5 2 2,5 I don't want to check file periodically, I want to it in the ...
Stas's user avatar
  • 157
3 votes
1 answer
652 views

multitail/ssh leaves processes hanging around after exit

I'm using multitail via SSH to filter log output on a number of servers like so: multitail -L "ssh foo.bar.com tail -n 0 -q -F /var/log/out.log | grep match" This works great, however when ...
sehugg's user avatar
  • 421
2 votes
4 answers
9k views

Linux: Can I monitor all http connections to my site live? like tail -f /file/log.log only for http connections?

I want to monitor whether or not people are accessing my site live. I want to see the http connections made to my site in terminal/ssh. Something like a tail -f /file/log.log function but I believe ...
Darius's user avatar
  • 345
2 votes
2 answers
593 views

Bash edit file and keep last 500 lines

I am looking to create a cron job that opens a directory loops through all the logs i have created and deletes all lines but keep the last 500 for example. I was thinking of something along the lines ...
icelizard's user avatar
  • 732
2 votes
3 answers
6k views

tail -f and then exit on matching string

I am trying to configure a startup script which will startup tomcat, monitor the catalina.out for the string "Server startup", and then run another process. I have been trying various combinations of ...
Patrick's user avatar
  • 192
2 votes
3 answers
256 views

Detect file update from modification time

Is there a way to see how often a file is being updated? I mean I need to see if the modification time of a file is updated in a dynamic way (same as tail shows if the file is updated in a dynamic way)...
Jim's user avatar
  • 335
2 votes
1 answer
51 views

send file difference from redhat to windows

Is there a way to send file content difference from Redhat to a server listening on a specific IP/Port on Windows? I initially thought tail -f command but then comes the IP part, anyone can help me?
maxjoy's user avatar
  • 23
2 votes
3 answers
5k views

How to make a cron script for cleaning up a log file? [closed]

I don't usually do this kind of stuff, so I just have to ask. How do I make a script which checks a log file, lets say it's named log.txt, grabs everything but the first 100 000 lines from it to a new ...
Guy395's user avatar
  • 21
2 votes
3 answers
236 views

Search for a log pattern continuously

I am preparing a log watch dog but my concern is tailing always would blow up in some point. Thus, My concern is to monitor the log file always and if a pattern match occurs. Issue some commands on ...
Olgun Kaya's user avatar
2 votes
3 answers
168 views

issues to inspect a long text file in unix

If I run sudo pico /var/log/lighttpd/website/error.log I get a very long file, and I cannot see last lines. If I run: sudo tail -f /var/log/lighttpd/website/error.log | awk '{print $1 "--" $2}' I ...
aneuryzm's user avatar
  • 1,754
2 votes
1 answer
395 views

tail command retry flag not working with wildcards?

I want to tail a bunch of unknown directories names containing a particular non-existant file, e.g.: tail -F /tmp/*/app.log However that does not work as intended with the wildcard: if I create a file ...
iomv's user avatar
  • 123
2 votes
2 answers
6k views

find files and search for within tail

The following is working as expected. find /opt/ -name "somefile.out" -exec grep 'Connection refused' {} \; | more But if I want to search only in the tail of the found files, I can not add tail or ...
shantanuo's user avatar
  • 3,619
2 votes
1 answer
122 views

Tail log files on multiple servers

Scenario: I have load balanced servers running a web application. To debug I'd like to see the output of the same log file (such as the nginx log) combined into a single stream, e.g. a tail -f on all ...
Peter Thoeny's user avatar
2 votes
1 answer
11k views

Cron is not running from docker container... failed

I am trying create cron a task in docker container. Everything are configured according to the @VonC 's answer My dockerfile looks like this FROM python:3.6.9 WORKDIR usr/src/mydir COPY requirements....
Shokan Iliyas's user avatar
2 votes
2 answers
790 views

"tail -f" style web application

I've been searching for a small but functional PHP script or similar that I can expose via apache. Basically I'd like what "tail -f /var/log/something" does, but visible via a web browser. I'm finding ...
draeath's user avatar
  • 366
2 votes
1 answer
578 views

Any way that I can feed tshark a live capture written to a file without reading from the start?

I'm capturing traffic from a microtik router to my linux server and writing to a big file. I'm searching for a way to feed from the current file end forward since it is a several GB file and I can't ...
Kostas Papadimakis's user avatar
2 votes
3 answers
3k views

Best tools for "ssh tail -f" style log file monitoring and analysis [closed]

I'm looking for a tool to monitor custom PHP Error logs/Apache and possibly Java logs on remote development servers. I'm not looking for a full production log system like Splunk, but something that's ...
Dougnukem's user avatar
  • 121