03-03-2008
Confused about some of your syntax
What are you trying to accomplish with the tail -f command?
And then your grep "third"?
Are you simply trying to narrow your search to the last ten lines (default of the tail command), and then find the line with the word "third"? If so, try without the -f on the tail command.
By the way, I am not convinced that your example works fine when you think it does. The -f on the tail command would appear to keep the process running awaiting additional input.
10 More Discussions You Might Find Interesting
1. UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers
Hello:
I'm a very newbee at UNIX/AIX.
What i want to do is to tail a file from the bottom until a certain string is found and write all the lines after the found string to another file.
I've tried out a lot of combination with tail and grep but doesn't find the good one.
Could someone help... (4 Replies)
Discussion started by: Felix2511
4 Replies
2. Shell Programming and Scripting
I'm trying to use tail/grep to monitor a log file. The command I cooked up is:
tail -n 50 -f output.log | grep 'type:system' | cut -f 5-
A sample line from the log file is:
1208894862 type:system session:0 severity:4 load started
the columns are tab delimited.
this works ok, except... (3 Replies)
Discussion started by: WasabiVengeance
3 Replies
3. Shell Programming and Scripting
Hi,
I am writing a shell script that checks catalina logs on a production system and mails me if it detects errors.
It greps the logs for known errors which i have defined as variables.
The problem is the logs are huge, approx 30,000 before they rotate.
So I am forced to use grep instead... (3 Replies)
Discussion started by: Moxy
3 Replies
4. Shell Programming and Scripting
The program that is running on my machine generates log files. I want to be able to know the number of lines that contain "FT" in the most recent log file. I wrote the following, but it always returns zero. And I know the count is not zero. Any ideas?
ls -rt *.log | tail -n 1 | grep -c FT (6 Replies)
Discussion started by: sdilucca
6 Replies
5. Shell Programming and Scripting
Hey!!
I'm having a hard time getting this to work!
I need to input a name and compare that name to a file in the file the name has a code on the same line as it, what i need is to compare the input name with the file and then output the code to a other file.
Ex:
... (16 Replies)
Discussion started by: nogame11
16 Replies
6. UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers
I need to tail -f a file so I can monitor it as it is being written to. However, there is a lot of garbage in the file that I don't care about. So normally I would just pipe and grep for the string that is important to me. However, in this case, there are two things I need to grep for. I can't... (3 Replies)
Discussion started by: Silver11
3 Replies
7. UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers
I have a basic tail/grep question. I have logs that are generated & kept in a directory called alert_audit. I am using "tail" to see the logs that are coming in, but I only need logs that contain the IP address 10.249.185. or 10.247.231.
Here is the command I have, but it pulls all IP... (3 Replies)
Discussion started by: robertson1995
3 Replies
8. Slackware
not sure how to do it. wan't to delete it using cut and grep ince i would use it in the shell.
but how must the command be?
grep "64.233.181.103 wwwGoogle.com" /etc/hosts | cut -d
the delimeter is just a space. can you help meplease. :D (1 Reply)
Discussion started by: garfish
1 Replies
9. UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers
hi guys,
I perform a sort of monitoring. I have a server running and with
tail -f | grep "Searchstring"I monitor the log-file for recent specific entries. This is ok and works fine.
Now, in addition I want to have my search results not posted into the shell but into a file. I tried:
tail... (3 Replies)
Discussion started by: LaUs3r
3 Replies
10. Shell Programming and Scripting
Good Morning,
i ran into some trouble this morning while 'improving' my monitoring stuff. i would like to get a warning when the number of mails sent (outbound) by postfix is above a certain number. so far, so easy. to test that i simply put
cat /var/log/mail.info | grep 'to=<' | grep -v -e... (1 Reply)
Discussion started by: Mike
1 Replies
TAIL(1) FSF TAIL(1)
NAME
tail - output the last part of files
SYNOPSIS
tail [OPTION]... [FILE]...
DESCRIPTION
Print the last 10 lines of each FILE to standard output. With more than one FILE, precede each with a header giving the file name. With
no FILE, or when FILE is -, read standard input.
Mandatory arguments to long options are mandatory for short options too.
--retry
keep trying to open a file even if it is inaccessible when tail starts or if it becomes inaccessible later -- useful only with -f
-c, --bytes=N
output the last N bytes
-f, --follow[={name|descriptor}]
output appended data as the file grows; -f, --follow, and --follow=descriptor are equivalent
-F same as --follow=name --retry
-n, --lines=N
output the last N lines, instead of the last 10
--max-unchanged-stats=N
with --follow=name, reopen a FILE which has not changed size after N (default 5) iterations to see if it has been unlinked or
renamed (this is the usual case of rotated log files)
--pid=PID
with -f, terminate after process ID, PID dies
-q, --quiet, --silent
never output headers giving file names
-s, --sleep-interval=S
with -f, sleep for approximately S seconds (default 1.0) between iterations.
-v, --verbose
always output headers giving file names
--help display this help and exit
--version
output version information and exit
If the first character of N (the number of bytes or lines) is a `+', print beginning with the Nth item from the start of each file, other-
wise, print the last N items in the file. N may have a multiplier suffix: b for 512, k for 1024, m for 1048576 (1 Meg).
With --follow (-f), tail defaults to following the file descriptor, which means that even if a tail'ed file is renamed, tail will continue
to track its end. This default behavior is not desirable when you really want to track the actual name of the file, not the file descrip-
tor (e.g., log rotation). Use --follow=name in that case. That causes tail to track the named file by reopening it periodically to see if
it has been removed and recreated by some other program.
AUTHOR
Written by Paul Rubin, David MacKenzie, Ian Lance Taylor, and Jim Meyering.
REPORTING BUGS
Report bugs to <bug-coreutils@gnu.org>.
COPYRIGHT
Copyright (C) 2002 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
This is free software; see the source for copying conditions. There is NO warranty; not even for MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICU-
LAR PURPOSE.
SEE ALSO
The full documentation for tail is maintained as a Texinfo manual. If the info and tail programs are properly installed at your site, the
command
info tail
should give you access to the complete manual.
tail (coreutils) 4.5.3 February 2003 TAIL(1)