MultiTail lets you view one or multiple files like the original tail program. MultiTail started as an attempt to provide a program which would display two log files in a split screen. It was originally a clone of wtail.
The difference is that this program creates multiple windows on your console (with ncurses). It can also use colors while displaying the logfiles for faster recognizing which lines are important and which are not.
The application is optimized for terminal-sessions through slow links.
Key Features
- A very powerful and versatile tool.
- Monitor wildcards – if another file matching the wildcard has a more recent modification date, it will automatically switch to that file. This allows monitoring a complete directory of files.
- Merge 2 or more log files.
- Use colours while displaying the logfiles (using regular expressions).
- Selections with regular expressions.
- Selection on field-number/string offset.
- Color schemes can be defined in a configuration file. A couple of examples have been included (Postfix, Apache, RSStail, Acctail, WTMPtail, Squid, Asterisk, Sendmail, Mailscanner, Samba, Exim, HTTPing, TCPdump, ISC-DHCPD, Bind, Smartmontools, Kerberos, NTPd, nagtail, WebSphere (SystemErr), NNTPcache, Veritas Netbackup procmail, Checkpoint Firewall-1, Netscape directory server (LDAP), log4j, ClamAV, p0f, sysstat, portsentry, pppd, strace, Linux firewall (netfilter) logging, Argus, Snort, Motion, IBM AIX errpt, MySQL error log, BOINC, acpitail, netstat) – easily extensible.
- Default color scheme for certain files can be selected in the configuration file (using regular expressions (NOT wildcards!))
- External scripts can be used to determine what colors to use where in the logged lines.
- Use of colors can be switched off.
- Filtering of lines (through regular expressions).
- Interactive menus for editing regular expressions and adding windows.
- Mimicking the functionality of tools such as watch when viewing the output of external software.
Website: github.com/thobbs/multitail-curses
Support:
Developer: Folkert van Heusden
License: GNU General Public License v2.0
MultiTail is written in C. Learn C with our recommended free books and free tutorials.
Related Software
| LogFile Viewers | |
|---|---|
| lnav | Curses-based utility for viewing and analyzing log files. |
| QJournalctl | Graphical User Interface for systemd’s journalctl |
| journalctl | Query and display messages from the journal |
| KSystemLog | System log viewer for KDE |
| toolong | View, tail, merge, and search log files |
| humanlog | Reads logs from stdin and prints them back to stdout, but prettier. |
| Xlogmaster | GTK+ based program to keep track of logfiles and devices |
| frontail | Stream logs to your web browser |
| logrifle | Designed to "rifle through" large logfiles |
| Gnome-logs | View and search logs with this graphical utility |
| glogg | Qt graphical log explorer |
| MultiTail | View multiple logfiles windowed on the console |
| Chipmunk | Fast logfile viewer that can deal with huge logfiles (>10 GB) |
| QLogExplorer | Qt-based tool for exploring log files |
| Grafito | Simple, self-contained web-based log viewer for journalctl |
| swatch | Logfile viewer with regexp matching, highlighting & hooks |
| logmaster-gtk-d | Log viewer for Linux built with GTK and D |
Read our verdict in the software roundup.
| Console Log File Analyzers | |
|---|---|
| journalctl | Query and display messages from the journal |
| lnav | Curses-based tool for viewing and analyzing log files |
| Gonzo | Go based TUI for log analysis |
| angle-grinder | Slice and dice logs |
| MultiTail | Monitor logfiles and command output in multiple windows |
| Chipmunk | Fast logfile viewer that can deal with huge logfiles (>10 GB) |
| TWSLA | Work with large log sets without deploying a heavier log management stack |
| Swatch | Simple Log Watcher is a useful tool to monitor just about any type of log |
Read our verdict in the software roundup.
| tail alternatives | |
|---|---|
| ov | Feature rich terminal pager |
| MultiTail | Monitor logfiles and command output in multiple windows |
| less | A popular pager |
| colortail | Like the tail command line utility but with colors |
| inotail | inotify-based implementation of tail |
| ptail | A dynamic tail |
| retail | The tail command with regular expressions |
| btail | Interactive file tail viewer |
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