-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- On Sun, 19 Sep 1999, Jim B wrote:
> Hi, I generallly keep some of my log files open ni a terminal via tail -f. > For example: > tail -f /var/log/messages > > However, tail does not "move" to the new "messages" (or whatever) log file > when they are rotated by savelog. So for example, I will still see the last > lines from the old messages file and I will have to terminate tail and run > it again to force it to move to the new messages file. > > If the file is moved and a new one put in its place, I'd like to start > reading the new file. I don't see any way to do this with tail (I checked > in the man/info pages). Is there a program which will do this? At least with the tail in potato (tail (GNU textutils) 2.0), there is an option to do this. The default option of tail with the -f option is to open the file and follow that file descriptor. If you use "--follow=name" instead of -f, it will periodically reopen the file to check if the file was moved. For example, i executed the following commands while tailing the file. $ echo "line 1" >> tail.test $ echo "line 2" >> tail.test $ mv tail.test tail.test.1; echo "line 3" >> tail.test Here's the tail output: $ tail --follow=name tail.test line 1 line 2 tail: `tail.test' has been replaced; following end of new file line 3 - -- finger for PGP public key. -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.3ia Charset: noconv iQCVAwUBN+UeH77M/9WKZLW5AQHenAQAlMhGO9VIX9WVlKmetyVmRm6Zrjkg5klx i2PT/FjZ0aOxR7q71xLPEA4Yu/lron1PSC1S6aiPE02QHZOPY+Pekz847px91BKj aS7C6LZ9nyWydd5WKnStjLMim6WJPtjhH7oBAzK9tp7cGYzRGrG4jWBfmF1iOXOz ZQlRtNnD6zg= =pYka -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
