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  #1  
Old 10-23-2002
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Join Date: Sep 2001
Location: D.C.
Posts: 50
Question using tail -f

Working in HP-UX 10.20. I eventually want to write a bourne shell script to handle the following problem, but for now I am just toying with it at the command line.

Here's what I am basically trying to do:

tail -f log_X | grep n > log_Y

I am doing a tail -f on log_X . Once it sees "n", I would like for it to grep it, then put it into log_Y. It ain't making it to log_Y.

I have been manually adding "n" to log_X, and the tail command is definitely seeing it, but it fails to pass it to log_Y.

Why? Is it because the command is trying to "complete" the tail -f before it executes the > (redirect) to log_Y??

Is there a better way to appraoch this?

TYIA
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  #2  
Old 10-23-2002
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Join Date: Aug 2002
Location: Marlboro, MA
Posts: 114
try using

tail -f log_X | grep n >> log_Y

I'm not sure this would work...

I can add that the commands on either side of a pipe "|" are started and executed synchronously... and we know that any command like grep will finish only if it sees an EOF, which "tail -f" will not give as it is in an infinite loop looking for newly appended lines...

so...

tail -f log_X | grep n

should be working fine and giving "new" lines having "n" to stdout as and when they append to log_x...

It may be a problem with redirection, so use redirection in append mode >> and let us know!!

Cheers!
Vishnu.
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  #3  
Old 10-23-2002
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Join Date: Sep 2001
Location: D.C.
Posts: 50
Vishnu:

I tried using tail -f log_X | grep n >> log_Y yesterday...it DID NOT work. I also tried a tail -f log_X | grep n >! log_Y. No go.

The reason I am using tail -f is because I want this to be a "real-time monitor". Once "n" appears, I need it to notify me.

Any other ideas?

TYIA
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  #4  
Old 10-23-2002
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Join Date: Aug 2002
Location: Marlboro, MA
Posts: 114
see these posts.. it seems that piping "tail -f" works with some OSes and does not work with some...

http://www.computing.net/solaris/www...orum/1734.html

http://www.zsh.org/mla/users/1999/msg00360.html

you did not tell whether...

tail -f log_X | grep n

worked on your system.. i.e., you can see the stuff on your terminal..

Cheers!
Vishnu.
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  #5  
Old 10-23-2002
Kelam_Magnus's Avatar
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Join Date: Aug 2001
Location: DFW McKinney, TX,
Posts: 1,069
daemon process gives real time

It seems that you would be better served to create a daemon to control this process.

You could tailor it to notify you when the string you want appears and email or beep you. You should have a template of one on your system or you can copy from a simple one in a directory similar to /sbin/init.d/template.

cp template myscript

You will need to add a kill and start link in your rc directories for it to startup a boot time.

ln -s myscript /sbin/rc3.d/S400myscript
ln -s myscript /sbin/rc1.d/K400myscript


Hope this helps!
__________________
My brain is your brain
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  #6  
Old 10-23-2002
LivinFree's Avatar
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Join Date: Jul 2001
Location: Portland, OR, USA
Posts: 1,584
Try this:
Code:
(tail -f /var/log/messages & ) | grep -i login
If you let tail run in the backgroundit lets grep work. As tail dumps out to stdout, grep is patiently waiting, reading stdin.

This will just dump out to your screen until you hit something like ctrl+c. If you want something more elaborate, you could sent the tail output to a different fd, and have grep read in from that fd.

Good luck!
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  #7  
Old 10-23-2002
LivinFree's Avatar
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Join Date: Jul 2001
Location: Portland, OR, USA
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Oh heck, why not - here's a slightly improved design. Run it in the background, and it will write the user defined above when it sees the exact phrase (also defined above).

It's not the pertiest, and probably not the fastest if the logs grows very quickly, but it works, and it's be easy to modify to mail, page, whatever...
Just be careful that it doesn't flood you out if it finds the same message hundreds of times...

Code:
#! /bin/ksh

search_word="search terms"
write_user=user_id

tail -n1 -f /path/to/log |&
while read -p output_line; do
 [[ $output_line == *"$search_word"* ]] && {
  print "$output_line" | write $write_user
  }
done
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