Linux View / Display a Logfile In Real Time on Screen

Author: Vivek Gite Last updated: November 26, 2013 2 comments

I would like to see my php or apache web server log files in real time. How do I see a log file in real time including all incoming logs on Linux using ssh based session?

You need to use the tail command which output the last part of files in real time including all incoming logs to a standard output device such as screen. This is useful to:

Tutorial details
Difficulty	Easy (rss)
Root privileges	Yes
Requirements	None
Time	2m

tail -f file-name command syntax

The basic syntax is:

tail fileName
tail /path/to/log/file
tail [options] /path/to/log/file

If your log file name is /var/log/lighttpd/access.log, enter:
tail -f /var/log/lighttpd/access.log

If your php log file name is /var/log/lighttpd/scripts.log, enter
tail -f /var/log/lighttpd/scripts.log
Sample outputs:

 47 -> 400 
2013-11-24 21:47:29: (request.c.622) invalid character in key GET /nixcraft/linux/docs/uniqlinuxfeatures/lsst HTTP/1.1
Host: cyberciti.biz
Accept: */*
Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10.8; rv:24.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/24.0 FirePHP/0.7.4
 
 /5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10.8; rv:24.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/24.0 FirePHP/0.7.4
 
 47 -> 400

You will get a scrolling view of the /var/log/lighttpd/scripts.log for all incoming entries on screen. To stop simply hit CTRL+C. Please note that you may need to login as root user to view log files.

Recommend readings

HowTo: See multiple log files on UNIX / Linux console using multitail command.
See tail(1) command man page for more information.

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